You Feel What You Think

Ephesians 4:22-24 “…that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”

Our actions and our emotions are usually driven by our thoughts. This can be a good thing if our thoughts are correct but if they are wrong we are in for some trouble.

Cold weather descended on us quickly in Ohio. For weeks the comfortable temperatures of early autumn hung around, but then the typical climate for this season arrived. The thermometer reading dropped and we loaded up our pellet stove and settled in to stay warm.

The dry heat of the stove requires us to run a humidifier to counteract the cracking of skin and warping of our wood furniture, so Nathan brought up the large unit from the basement and reminded me to purchase another wick filter so we could get it running. I hadn’t done this in a while so I took a picture of the model number and while at work looked up the part I needed on line.

Much to my dismay, I couldn’t find the wick that looked like the one we had used in the past, so I decided to call the company. After the annoying delays of pressing all the right buttons, I finally got a human on the line who told me that according to the model number I needed three rectangular wicks to fit in the unit. I disagreed. This was not what we had been using for the past few years. The correct one was a circle and fit down over the motor. The sales rep continued to insist that couldn’t be true and I felt my frustration level rising. “Why do they always change things? It’s probably so the consumer is forced to buy a new expensive unit before we really need it,” I vented to the woman. There was no more need for discussion, so I hung up and fussed and fumed to myself about this frustrating and expensive problem.

At lunchtime I returned home to again search the base of the humidifier for a different model number or any clue as to where I could purchase the correct replacement filter. As I removed the housing and examined the device more carefully, I sheepishly realized something. The lady on the phone was right. The unit had three grooves in which to insert the block-type filters. For the past few years I had been using the wrong one. All of my anxiety and frustrated emotions were based on wrong information, wrong thoughts and beliefs. What a waste!

There are so many areas of life in which we develop wrong thoughts or beliefs. These affect the way we respond to things and people around us. God tells us that we need to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. We need to think like He thinks so that we can act the way He would act. We must put off the old self, which is corrupted by our natural lusts and put on the new self that has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

When our thoughts tell us that someone who disagrees with us doesn’t like us, we set ourselves up to damage relationships when we respond according to this wrong belief. When we falsely understand that our appearance and abilities make us worth something, we will suffer the consequences of continual striving and devastating disappointment when we fail. Anger, unwholesome words, bitterness and slander will be our response when our thoughts are not in tune with those of God.

Lessons learned –examine all your thoughts and beliefs. Make sure they line up with God’s Word. And always look carefully at your humidifier before arguing with the sales representative. These will save you a lot of grief.

Love,

Mama