Jesus is clear about what he wants you to think. Philippians 4:8 says:

Finally, brothers (and sisters), whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable … if anything is excellent or praiseworthy … think about such things.

That, we all know, isn’t easy. So how do we control our thoughts when our emotions are running the show? Yet, God wants us to change our thinking, so it must be possible. As Paul writes in Romans 12:2 (NIV):

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The New Living translation puts it this way: 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.

Sanctification is never finished in our lifetimes. So we need to recognize that we cannot control our thoughts without God’s help. He alone will help us to replace the harsh critic in our brains with a loving observer.

It’s a great path to developing humility. We have to recognize that we do not have the ability to master our own minds. We are not as mentally strong nor as fabulous as we think we are. Using the discipline of detachment can stop us from being surprised at our own thoughts. We are not good enough, on our own, to ensure that our thoughts are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.

As we offer the control of our thoughts over to the Holy Spirit, we can begin to watch our own minds. We can observe our thoughts as God does – with gentleness and compassion. With HIs help, we develop an early detection system to see when we are going astray. Just as detachment helps us to pause enough to decide how to react to a bad situation, it also lets us what the stream of thoughts flow and decide if they are going in the right direction.

Linda Kavelin Popov wrote a book called “The Family Virtues Guide: Simple Ways to Bring Out the Best in Our Children and Ourselves.” I used her ideas raising my kids. I have a quote from her that I wrote on an index card long again, so it’s probably from that book. It said:

“We can choose to engage in the Troubled Cs – control, criticism, contempt or contention – or act on our virtues of acceptance, appreciation and assertiveness.”

I like that. Acceptance and appreciation are paths to thoughts that are true, noble, right, pure and so on. And assertiveness gives us the courage to voice those good thoughts to people who might not want to hear them.

So let us bring Jesus’ eyes, ears and ideas to our thought life. We aren’t holy enough for it to go perfectly. But the Holy Spirit is there to help us.