Thoughts

Happiness is a choice and we can be happy no matter what if we so choose to be. Proverbs 23:7
says, “As a man THINKS in his heart, so is he…”. What we THINK is a big deal. All that we achieve
and all that we fail to achieve is the direct result of our own thoughts. Every negative and positive
feeling is a direct result of thought. Angry, jealousy, happiness, sadness are all a result of our
thoughts.
We are the producers of our thoughts. Thought is not something that happens to us, but something
we do. What we THINK determines what we see… not the other way around.
Seeing is NOT believing… Believing (thought) is seeing. Our THINKING, not our circumstances,
determine how we feel and how we SEE life. It’s easier to blame our unhappiness on what happens
to us rather than our thinking.
Thinking Is an ABILITY, not REALITY! What we think is not necessarily REALITY. It’s just what we
think about it. An outside circumstance itself is neutral. What we think about it gives it
meaning. That’s why the SAME circumstance will mean entirely different things to different
people. The shortest distance between the Truth and the heart is a story:
There once was a pair of twins. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities — one
was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist — their parents took them to a psychiatrist.
First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to
a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst
into tears. “What’s the matter?” the psychiatrist asked, baffled. “Don’t you want to play with any of the
toys?” “Yes,” the little boy bawled, “but if I did I’d only break them.”
Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a
room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist
emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the
pessimist. Then he climbed to the top of the pile, fell to his knees, and began gleefully digging scoop
after scoop with his bare hands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had
been by the pessimist. “With all this manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a pony in
here somewhere!”
The quality of your life has little to do with your circumstances. However, the quality of your life has
everything to do with how you respond to your circumstances. The optimist found his pony in the
midst of his manure pile. Are you going to let the stench of your pile drive you to despair, or are you
going to start digging? There’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere!
Our thinking is not reality but an attempt to INTERPRET a situation. Our BELIEF SYSTEM will make
that interpretation. That is why your Belief System must be based on TRUTH. TRUTH… God’s Word
is REALITY. Thoughts do not control the quality of your life. You choose what you think about and
therefore the quality of your life is a choice as well. If you thought it, you can quit thinking about it.
A mood is a “state or quality of feeling at a particular time.” Positive thoughts lead to high moods
while negative thoughts lead to low moods. Every human being experiences “mood swings.” Even
Jesus. Matthew 26:38 says: Then He said to them, My soul is very sad and deeply grieved, so that I
am almost dying of sorrow.
The mind, will and emotions make up our soul. Peace is a fruit of the spirit, not the soul. Was Jesus
filled with the Spirit? Yes! But His soul still experienced the mood swings of a fallen world. Don’t beat
yourself up when you are in a low mood. You are in good company. Mood swings come with the
territory.
Our moods change… not our lives. Everything looks different in different moods. If we understand
this principle, our compassion for ourselves and for one another increases dramatically. Sometimes
we see the bright side of things, and other times all we see is darkness. Cut yourself and others
some slack when in a LOW mood. The Bible says, IT CAME TO PASS… It didn’t come to stay. Shift
your thoughts to your blessings and be grateful for them and low moods will pass faster.
If YOU are in a LOW mood, acknowledge the fact that you are and chill out. Understand that it is the
low mood talking, not the person. We all say and do things we don’t mean in a LOW mood. If both of
you are in a LOW mood, neither of you want to hear the other questioning or arguing. As you learn to
disregard negative thoughts and BE STILL in the awareness of God’s Presence, your mood will rise
above the line.