Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 10:5, Psalm 118:24, Ephesians 6: 13-17

Mike Davies considers the power our thoughts have to shape our lives

Mike Davies

Deal with your past, if not it will pass into the present and the future!

Have you ever considered that everything you do begins with a simple thought? If this is true, then if you don't control your thoughts, they control you.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I can be minding my own business and I hear something on the radio, recognise a smell, or hear a word spoken and it can trigger a thought pattern that can sometimes spiral into something quite negative.

A couple of weeks ago I returned from ministering to churches in the Ukraine. Due to the current political climate it was very different to my previous visits to the country. However, there were two incidences that created an imprint on my mind that may be with me forever. I will share these without much detail to protect the respectability of those involved.

I had arranged to meet with one of the pastors. As I stepped out of the place where I was staying I saw before me the body of a lady who had been killed in a traffic collision. Instantaneously it put me into a state where I just could not believe what my eyes were telling me. Here I was in a country to bring words of life and hope and I had death plainly in front of me. To be candid, I was quite astounded at how I handled this. I had seen dead bodies before, but this loss of life hit me. My reflections were all over the place. I began to think about her family and how long it would be before they were told.

The picture I was presented with provided an instant and perpetual imprint on my mind.

On the same day, I was asked if I could go and pray for someone who was terminally ill and did not have long to live. Looking at the despondency of this life and the locality in which I found them stunned me. I have prayed for thousands of people for all sorts of reasons, but this one person needing my prayer really hit me.

Following the events of that day it was not long before I had thoughts of my brother, who died of a terminal illness a few years back. My thoughts then turned to my family at home and whether they were safe? I was then wondering what I was doing in a country at war when I surely had obligations at home.

Who would look after my family if something happened to me?

This leads me to my next point. Speculation takes up a lot of our thought time. We create different scenarios in our head and wonder what things would have been like if only the former incidents or people had been different. If only a relationship had not broken up, if only I had got that job, if only ... and so on.

Our thoughts create our moods, which in turn create our attitude, which then affects our behaviour. Negative thoughts about ourselves, about others, or about God, can soon spiral uncontrollably unless we bring each thought into captivity and renew our minds with what is good.

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome he said, ".. be transformed by the renewing of your mind .." (Romans 12:2) and he also informed the believers at Corinth to "...bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5)

If we allow negative thoughts to crowd our mind we soon find that we are reacting out of fear based emotions. For every thought we have we can make a conscious decision to accept or reject it. Have you ever considered that? It is not easy but it gets easier with practice.

Scientists have proved that strong negative memories can have a detrimental effect on our health. Negative memories can take a hold within us.