Memories

“As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man.” (Proverbs 27:19)

We all have memories of the holidays and what it was like as a child growing up. I have very fond memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I did some quick calculations. I’ve eaten over 73,000 meals in my 67 years on earth, yet we don’t remember our meals other than a few significant ones, but I’ve only had 67 Thanksgiving and Christmas days in my life, yet the memories of many of them run very deep. What is it that causes some memories to be ingrained deeper than others? It certainly isn’t because there are more of them. They run deep because we’ve replayed them many times and that causes those grooves to run deep in our minds.

This reinforces the belief that how we treat memories is important. Want to keep a good memory or thought pattern – think on it! We have all heard the expression, “you are what you eat”, but is also true to say “you are (and are becoming) what you think.” If our goal as Christians is to become Christ followers and to become more like Him, then that is where we should have our thoughts focused. For me, that means spending time in the Word each morning to make sure the pump is primed and I have intentionally started my thought life up with Him and the center. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy time – sometimes I have limited time if I have a busy day ahead, but the point for me is to make sure the day starts out with directing my thoughts for the day.

We can build a solid thought life by intentionally creating memories and thought patterns. Some people would use the word meditate, as in “meditate on the word.” Meditation is not a new Eastern thought process – God has spoke of meditating on His word many times in Scripture. Webster’s has this to say about meditation: “to engage in contemplation or reflection, to focus one’s thoughts on: reflect or ponder over. to plan or project in the mind.” The words Ponder, Meditate, Muse, and Ruminate are synonyms and mean to consider or examine attentively or deliberately.

Meditation is a function of the mind and the heart. It is what we think about in our hearts and it is something we each do every day. Like it or not, your heart and mind is focused on SOMETHING every day meaning that we all spend a large amount of time each day in some form of meditation, much of it on the subconscious level.

The question we need to ask is whether what our mind is focused on is healthy or unhealthy? If it isn’t healthy then it’s time to intentionally start replacing those thoughts with God-centered ones. I’d rather my mind ruminate subconsciously on thoughts that spring from Scripture than whatever my mind wants to drag up from the past to dwell on.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)