Digging Deeper: Changed Thinking
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
CHANGED THINKING
When Joni Eareckson Tada spoke at the Wheaton College Elizabeth Elliott Memorial Service, she said she knew there was more to suffering than understanding the reasons why God allows it or how you can benefit from it. She recognized that true maturity, true joy, and true contentment have less to do with a mechanistic assessment of God’s plan and purposes for your life and more to do with being pushed into—and at times shoved and pressed up against—the breast of Jesus Christ until your heart begins beating in rhythm with His. It’s not a tidy, orderly list but something very messy: an earnest grappling and wrestling with the angel of the Lord until He touches us in heart and hip.
She said, “When you are decimated by affliction, when you are down for the count, you learn Elizabeth’s doctrine. The Bible’s answers are never to be separated from the tender, sweet, holy, precious God of the Bible—food and drink to those of us that God places on altars of affliction.”
Tada, as you may recall, dove into the Chesapeake Bay at the young age of 16, broke her neck, and has spent the majority of her life paralyzed in a wheelchair. Now 75 years old, she has endured stage 3 breast cancer and currently lives with chronic pain in spite of her paralysis. Without a doubt, she has learned about the hope of heaven.
Romans 8:28 tells us we serve a sovereign God who is weaving all the events of our lives together for our good and His glory. But how can some of this be good? In the throes of life’s hardest moments, Scripture offers profound insight into God’s thoughts versus our own.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:8-9
Yet, when you are staring at the effects of adultery, a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a loved one, or a wayward child, it’s hard to imagine how such hardship can be seen as good. Romans 12:2 offers the key:
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Philippians 4:8 adds this powerful command:
“Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
If His thoughts are not our thoughts, then the prayer becomes, “God, change my thinking on this. You are the good thing You will not withhold. Give me eyes to see You in this impossibly hard season. Help me to fix my thoughts on Your promises and character.”
After all, He is our only hope in this life.
Sarah Jefferson is married to Curtis and the mother to Grey, Sanders, and Collins. She is a rare Atlanta native, currently living in Acworth. Sarah began her career in public relations in the sports industry. Now, she is a high school English teacher Mt. Paran Christian School. When she’s not teaching, you can find her running or hiking the beautiful trails of north Georgia and spending time with her busy family.