THINKING

His face was contorted and his eyes glared with no real focus. “What are you looking at?” Sarah, Sam’s wife asked. “Nothing, I’m just thinking” Sam replied. Was Sam really thinking? Joey gazed into space as he stared hard out the class room window. “Joey, stop day dreaming and get to work” Mrs. Aliceson barked. How is it that adults are awarded praise for “thinking,” while a child is rebuked for “day dreaming?” Thinking! What is it?
Thoughts, what are thoughts? Thoughts are defined as “the act or process of thinking. The product of thinking I find that a little funny. Thoughts are the product of thinking and thinking the act of creating thoughts. It reads like a Merry-go-round. Bare in mind, thinking creates thoughts and thoughts are the product of thinking, which nothing of the above definition leaves a man’s mind. What is thinking, as defined, than nothing short of “day dreaming?”
Often we hear of men and women these days who just sit around doing nothing but letting their minds “wonder.” They are “thinking” we say. The truth is; they are “day dreaming.” They are “spinning their wheels” we say. If I’m not mistaken, the automobile which spins its wheels is “stuck” and is really going nowhere.
What are “thoughts?” When we read of men in the Bible who “thought,” they almost inevitably got into trouble. When Abraham was asked why he lied about Sarah being his sister instead of his wife, he said “Because I thought” (Gen 20:11). When Balak, King of Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel, the Bible reveals that this evil was generated from “I thought” (Num 24:11). Ironically, the name Balak means “waster, emptying” (Lockyer, All of the Men of the Bible, 65).
The Hebrew word for “thought” is ‘amar, which can mean “suppose.” A good name for “thoughts” is supposition. A great truth can be gained from this truth. Those who like Balak, waste their time “supposing” something to be that is not, believing something is fact that is a lie, are in deed wasting their life away on emptiness.
When Naaman “supposed” that the Pastor Elishia would simply come to church and say a few words and he’d be healed, and didn’t, “Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought” (II Kg. 5:11). When David was on the bottom of depression and at the point of backsliding, he admitted, “When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me” (Ps. 73:16). David’s dilemma was all caused by the turning of the brain, supposition.
Now then after we have proven, “thoughts,” as we understand them, are not virtuous, let me explain future. Thinking as we have come to understand it is little more than meditation, churning our brain activity. “Mauling it over in the mind” is what we have called it. This kind of “thinking” is not true thinking. It is nothing more than a seed bed for mental imaginations.
We have learned that the devil uses the power he has to put thoughts into our minds. The Bible reveals that Satan is the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). The word “air” here is better defined as “subconscious.” Satan can not read our minds, but he can put thoughts and imaginations into our minds. This is why we are commanded “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). Therefore, thoughts roaming free can be a base for the devil to generate “assumptions, wanderings, imaginations and visions which oppose the word of God.
Notice, when Job began to fear, trouble came to him. Job latter confessed, “In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, 14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. 15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up” (Job 4:13-15). We read in the first chapter of Job that it was the devil that brought those “thoughts” and visions of torment in the night. Uncontrolled thoughts have power to create visions and imaginations which can be bad to one’s emotions.
Paul said it well, “When I was a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:11). The real true way of thinking is to “Write” your thoughts down, or “Speak” your thoughts. Spoken and written thoughts are the way God created in the beginning. What was in the mind of God in the beginning, he spoke it out. Jesus said, “It is written.” Real thinking must be done with a pen or with words.
The next time you start “thinking,” pull out a pen and start writing, you’ll be surprised what you put on paper. The next time you start having “thoughts,” speak it out and hear for yourself if it is of God or not. “Keep thy heart (thoughts) with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23).