Last summer during our much-needed vacation to Hawaii, I memorized Phil. 4:8. I really wanted to allow the idea of renewing my mind with positive thoughts to take effect. It was one of the best vacations ever as I intentionally replaced negative and stressful thoughts with “whatever was true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy!”
A couple months later I ran across The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life by Tommy Newberry. Here was an entire book based on the same verse! My wife and I have really enjoyed it. Now we are buying copies for friends of ours!
Here are some of the insights, Tommy offers:
“The average person thinks approximately 50,000 thoughts per day. Each thought moves us either toward our God-given potential or away from it.”
“No area of your life is untouched by your thoughts.”
“The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven or hell; a hell of heaven.” – John Milton
“The secret conversations you hold in your the privacy of your own mind are shaping your destiny, little by little…. What you persistently think eventually but inevitably crystallizes into the words you speak and then the things you do.”
“… thinking, talking, and worrying about what you don’t want can never bring you what you do want…. As relentlessly as you try, you cannot think one thing and experience something else.”
“You can override past negative programming by deliberately choosing new behaviors that line up with your God-given potential, whether or not you feel like it.”
“Dwell on the person God wants you to become…. Contemplate the wonderful and exciting plans God has for your future.”
“You will always feel what you dwell on…. you can do away with a negative thought only when you replace it with a positive thought.”
“One of the most effective and least utilized methods for upgrading your emotional life is acting your way into the feelings you most desire…. [otherwise] you will forever be doomed to enjoy only those positive emotions that arise spontaneously.”
“Emotions don’t reveal the quality of your life; they reveal the quality of your thinking at any particular moment.”
I just received an email from Jane at http://www.getitinyoursoul.com, she wrote “[since] we have 50,000 thoughts per day and spend on average 2 ½ hours in our cars, that leaves 8,333 thoughts to influence by the positive, uplifting Biblical promises from Driving Reflections.”
That’s a lot of time driving!
As a Christian my heart aches when I continue to see “Best Selling” “Christian” Books that focus our attention on ourselves (the American ideal).
What is lost is it’s not about “Me” it’s about Loving God and “Others”.