Choose!

I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me… Yeah. Riiight. People try all kinds of things to control their thoughts and feelings. The fact is, you’re going to be thinking of something pretty much all the time, no matter what you do. But how can you control your thoughts?

GOZER: Subcreatures! Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveller has come. CHOOSE AND PERISH.
VENKMAN: (shouting to be heard) Is he talking to us?
WINSTON: What’s he talking about? Choose what?
STANTZ: (to the heavens) What do you mean “choose?” We don’t understand.
GOZER: CHOOSE!!
SPENGLER: I think he’s saying that since we’re about to be sacrificed anyway, we get to choose the form we want him to take.
STANTZ: You mean if I stand here and concentrate on the image of Roberto Clemente, Gozer will appear as Roberto Clemente and wipe us out?
SPENGLER: That appears to be the case.
VENKMAN: (quickly) Don’t think of anything yet. Clear your minds. We only get one crack at this.
GOZER: The choice is made. The Traveller has come.

Now, your thoughts may not cause a hundred foot tall marshmallow man to materialize and destroy New York, but they can be equally harmful. Where your mind goes, your body may follow. George Morrison says –

In the government of thought—in the power to bring thought to heel—lies one of our greatest moral safeguards against sin… First, a bare thought—that is the beginning, and it is then that the government of thought means heaven or hell. For if a man has disciplined himself to crush that thought—which may come to the purest and holiest mind—still better, if he has acquired the power to change the current and to turn his thought instantly into other and nobler channels, temptation is baffled at its very start and the man stands upon his feet victorious. A man will never regulate his passions who has never learned to regulate his thoughts. If we cannot master our besetting thoughts, we shall never master our besetting sins.

So how do you master your besetting thoughts? You can’t just turn off your brain. Just as with overcoming anxiety, the bible has given us explicit instructions.

Finally, my brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are right, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, think on these things. Do those things which you have also learned and received and heard and seen in me. And the God of peace shall be with you.
(Philippians 4:8-9)

As a practical example: when I catch myself thinking of how much another person aggravates me, I deliberately stop and think of three good things about that person. When I’m tempted to sin, I have a wide variety of things to contemplate – scripture I’ve memorized (a shamefully short list, but growing!), the changes in my life since salvation, what heaven will be like… keeping in mind that where my mind goes, my body will follow. Do I always do it? No. But just admitting to myself that what I think is a choice keeps me accountable and makes it easier to make the correct choice.