thought on Attention-Spans

My thought it is a wanton ranger,  It skips away;  I fear 'twill bring my soul in danger  On Judgment Day...

Too often we give real estate to things in our lives that either haven’t earned their land or were never meant to occupy important space in the first place.

The desert saints said that the beginning of renouncing a thought is simply noticing it. That is part of what I’m doing in my quarter hours—I am noticing, and naming, and then, for a few minutes, quar...

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

The great irony of our time is that even as we are living longer, we are thinking shorter.

A remarkable aspect of your mental life is that you are rarely stumped.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

In the first chapter of her book, Get Out of Your Head , author Jennie Allen shares a vulnerable and honest moment from her own life about just how hard it can be to focus in a world of distraction...

The greatest spiritual battle of our generation is being fought between our ears.

God's Word must be so strongly fixed in our minds that it becomes the dominant influence in our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions. One of the most effective ways of influencing our minds is...

Did you know that more has been discovered about our minds in the last twenty years than in all the time before that? Did you know that an estimated 60 to 80 percent of visits to primary care physicia...

Mind-management is a skill that needs to be learned and constantly upgraded as we grow from childhood into adulthood. For every new experience we need a new set of mind-management tools.

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.

In recent years, an entire discipline of modern psychology has developed called cognitive behavioral therapy. This breakthrough teaching reveals that many problems, from eating disorders to relational...

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

But it’s not so simple, that sort of “quiet hour”. It has to be learned. A lot of unimportant inner litter and bits and pieces have to be swept out first. Even a small head can be piled high inside wi...

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.

What Determines Happiness?  Imagine a movie theater full of a hundred people. These hundred individuals represent the full continuum of happiness: Some are exceptionally happy, others less so, and ...

At the start of the process the idea is just a thought - very fragile and exclusive. When the first physical manifestation is created everything changes. It is no longer exclusive, now it involves a l...

I began to see a pattern at work in many of us. Our emotions were leading us to thoughts, and those thoughts were dictating our decisions, and our decisions were determining behaviors, and then the be...

Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. What we think shapes who we are.

To most people nothing is more troublesome than the effort of thinking.

One thing is certain: if you don’t shape your life, it will be shaped for you. And to shape your life, you need to know how to shape your mind—you need mind-management.

The insight that we can exercise some control over our thoughts and feelings is deep in Christianity.

I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.

Many of us tend to be passive with our thoughts and feelings. We treat them like they rule us, like they are in charge of us, and not the other way around. We forget that our thoughts and feelings are...

We sow a thought and reap an act; We sow an act and reap a habit; We sow a habit and reap a character; We sow a character and reap a destiny.

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

The battle for your life is fought and won in your mind. God wants you to take control of your mind, in Jesus' name, through the power of His Holy Spirit. You can think your way into changing your...