Thoughts

 

Sometimes I am confounded by thoughts.  For example…do you ever wonder………?

Do you see what I mean?

The fact is that no two people think exactly alike. I know this because I am married and Sarah has not come to see things my way…yet.  Despite this, we all share the undeniable truth that we all…think.  Here is a deep thought.  Have you ever considered that maybe you are the only one who sees the color blue as really blue and everyone else sees it as pink, but they have been taught that pink is blue?

If you ever ask someone, “What are you thinking?,” to which they reply, “Nothing.” You know that person is a liar, because technically and scientifically our brains never stop thinking…except perhaps for boys between the ages of 12-19. 

There are times when my thoughts consume me, even paralyze me.  Just the other night, I woke up in a panic at 3:30 AM with the thought that I had left the grill on from the previous night’s pork chop supper.  With my heart racing, I couldn’t shake the thought.  Finally, I walked out onto the deck to check the grill.  It was off…whew…but the shed door was open.  So…I went back to bed without closing the shed door.

During my third year of college I noticed a girl during the first week of classes.  Every day afterward my mind was bent on wanting to get to know her more.  I would look for her in the dining center, in the hallways and in the library.  Interestingly, the library was the hotspot, as she was a 4.0 student with summa cum laude accolades.  Finally, in February…six month later, I got the nerve to ask her out.  I took her to a coffee shop.  Strategically, I selected a coffee shop which happened to be on the opposite side of the twin cities, in effort to gain as much time with her as I could. It was an incredible evening.  She was beautiful, clever, funny, sensitive, honorable and humble.  She was everything that I wanted to be, but was not.  I remember thinking, as I dropped her off at her dorm room, “I want to do that again.” I went right up to my own room and called my dad. 

“Hello.” He said as he answered.

“Dad!, I have met the ONE!” and I began to tell him all about her.

I could barely sleep that night as my thoughts continued to return to the coffee shop and the girl next to me.  Since that day, she has continued to be on my mind.  Years later, I learned of her own response to that first night.  She had gone into her room and said to her roommates, “Wow! That guy can be normal!”

She too had trouble sleeping.

She was on my mind and I was on her mind.  That is still true today.

This is a small picture of what we find in Malachi 3:13-4:6.  Here we find that those who love the Lord will have God on their mind.  Likewise we see that we are on God’s mind.  I am reminded of Psalm 8:4, “What is man that you are mindful of him…that you care for him.”  It is incredible to consider…that God’s thoughts are consumed with us! YOU and ME!

May our thoughts dwell on the grace and mercy of the Lord God almighty, knowing that his mind is also on us!