The Pew Research Center study showed that millennials had far more negative views of their generation compared with Generation Xers, baby boomers or other age groups. More than half of millennials, 59...
In a study conducted by Timothy Wilson, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, researchers discovered what most of us already know: people do not like to be left alone with their own tho...
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...
Psychologists have estimated that we have anywhere between twelve thousand and sixty thousand thoughts a day. The majority of those—as high as 80 percent—are thought to be negative: obsessing about mi...
Social scientists define procrastination as “delaying a task for a maladaptively long time,” and it bedevils almost all of us. One study found that more than 70 percent of university students procrast...
The Clinical psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi describes how our minds, without stimuli, tends to quickly turn towards negative thoughts, our dissatisfaction. Contrary to what we tend to assume, ...
Proverbs 4:23, Luke 6:45, Matthew 12:34-35, Luke 6:45, 2 Corinthians 10:5, Proverbs 17:22
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...
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...
Phillips Brooks, the author of the famous hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” He wrote: Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is living, with the thoug...
There is an old story about a little boy who insisted on standing up on a pew during the church service. After several admonishments his mother severely threatened him if he stood up one more time. As...
2 Corinthians 10:5, Matthew 6:22-23, Luke 11:34-35, Psalm 19:14, Matthew 15:18-19, Mark 7:20-23
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...
Core beliefs can be hard to change because they’ve generally been with us for a long time, and we assume that they’re true. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to changing our core beliefs is that they are s...
Traditional The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, th...
Modern knowledge involves breaking things down into component parts. As philosopher Michel Foucault argues in The Birth of the Clinic, nowhere is this more disturbingly clear than in modern medicine, ...
The pyschologist Carl Rogers, a person who would know quite well the interior lives of others, has this to say of our inmost thoughts: I have most invariably found that the very feeling which has see...
A worldview is as indispensable for thinking as an atmosphere is for breathing. You can’t think in an intellectual vacuum any more than you can breathe without a physical atmosphere. Most of the time,...
It’s not just what you eat that matters, it’s what eats you. You can have all the right macrobiotics and organic food, but if your body is filled with resentment, worry, fear, lust, guilt, anger, bitt...
Luke 1:46, Luke 1:39-56, Psalm 145:3, Psalm 48:1, Psalm 34:3
Another Bible translation says that Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (NKJV, emphasis added). What did she mean by magnifies? When you look at something through a magnifying glass, it looks much...
Romans 8:14, Galatians 5:25, Luke 24:13-32, Acts 8:26-40, Psalm 119:18, John 16:13, Colossians 2:3
How we praise and thank You for the holy Scriptures which You have caused to be written for our learning. Thank You for Your written Word, which reveals to us the living Word of God, in the Person of ...
In her book Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott quotes “this guy I know” as saying, “My mind is a bad neighborhood that I try not to go into alone.” I feel this on a deep and spiritual level. Until ...
James 1:2-4, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 John 3:1-3, 2 Timothy 4:7-8, Romans 12:1-2, Psalm 51:10-12, Hebrews 12:1-2
Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...
When we have the same thought again, the line of the original thought is deepened, causing what's called a memory trace. With each repetition the trace goes deeper and deeper, forming and embeddin...
Leader: The Lord searches us and knows us. God discerns our thoughts and is acquainted with all our ways. People: Even the darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day, for darknes...
2 Corinthians 10:4-5, Isaiah 55:7, Colossians 3:2, Romans 12:2, Matthew 15:18-19, Mark 7:21-23, Luke 6:45
Once, a bird flew into our tiny house and wouldn’t fly out. It took more than an hour for our whole family working together to catch that silly little sparrow. Shooting the bird with a BB gun? Easy. B...