Taking Your Thought Temperature by Lisa Burkhardt Worley and Catherine Weiskopf

Today’s Pearls of Promise devotion is based on chapter two of the book, If I Only Had…Wrapping Yourself in God’s Truth During Storms of Insecurity, co-authored by Catherine Weiskopf and Lisa Burkhardt Worley. The chapter is: “If I Only Had…Healthy Thoughts.”

What do you think about? What thoughts roll around in your head? Imagine if someone invented a thought thermometer. It would be like a mood ring that actually works. Put it in your ear, press a button, and your thoughts would register somewhere between the boiling point and absolute zero. Would your thoughts ever have a healthy temperature of 98.6? We know negative thinking can make us sick, but we still spend too much time debilitated by its infection.

Fortunately, we know we are not alone. Jonah was a man whose thought temperature registered two lines short of the boiling point. Let’s start with his assignment from God in Jonah 1:1-2:   The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai:   “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

God wasn’t sending Jonah on a vacation to the Bahamas. Nineveh was the home of one of the Israelites’ arch enemies, the Assyrians, who were known for their gruesome torture tactics.

Telling Jonah to preach to the Assyrians is like God asking you to go and preach about Jesus to a terrorist group. Any volunteers?

Jonah didn’t like the Assyrians, and he didn’t want to tell them to repent, because in his mind, they were bad people. Do you see Jonah’s thought temperature rising?

Jonah’s first step toward righteousness was to realize something was wrong with his thinking. The same applies to us. Whether they are about our looks or our husbands, our children or our friends, we must first recognize our thoughts are not God’s.

If God’s thinking and your thinking do not line up, whose thinking needs changing? One reason we read the Bible is so God can reveal to us how He wants us to think.

It’s not easy or immediate, but immersing ourselves in God’s Word will move us from our natural thinking to God’s thinking. Reading God’s Word becomes learning God’s Word. Learning God’s Word becomes using God’s Word. Using God’s Word becomes living God’s Word, and that is when we can see real changes in our thought temperature.

So Jonah hopped a boat to Tarshish.  His cruise became very rocky when a violent storm threatened to tear the boat apart. Things like this always happen when you are trying to run away from the Master of the Universe. So Jonah, in an “aha” moment, said to his fellow crew members, “Sorry, guys, but I think this storm is raging because I’m trying to escape from God. If you want to throw me overboard, that may clear up the weather.” The crew, in deciding whether to save themselves or save Jonah, didn’t hesitate to say, “Adios.”

Many times, God gives us a gentle push—or as in Jonah’s case, a big shove—to get us back on track. As soon as Jonah’s feet hit the waves, the sea grew calm. In most cases, a man overboard without a life vest would be good as dead but we all know that Jonah did not die. God just needed to give Jonah some time to hear His voice. That’s why He sent the big fish to swallow Jonah up for three days and three nights. Jonah went from ship-bound to fish-bound, from running time to thinking time.

At this point, awareness is forming at the edge of Jonah’s brain that his thoughts and God’s thoughts are not aligned. The temperature on his thought thermometer is creeping down. There is hope for Jonah’s condition, after all.

Sometimes we need to change our surroundings in order to change our thinking.  

We hope that when God wants to talk to us, He will employ more-subtle tactics. Sometimes, all He wants is for us is to take a break from our preoccupation with the world. No e-mails. No phone ringing. No TV. No Facebook™. You must be intentional about separating yourself from distractions. Ask God to help you believe in His promises to you. Ask Him to adjust your thought temperature to be more like His.

Jonah found the truth sitting in the belly of the big fish. He had a lot of time to think, and gradually, his unhappiness with his Maker transformed into gratitude. Let’s hear what he had to say in Jonah 2:6,7:  To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.

It’s amazing how living in the belly of the fish for three days can transform your thinking. Jonah went from running from God’s view to seeing God’s truth for his life.

God will give us more opportunities to think rightly.

So, God gave Jonah another opportunity to go and proclaim His message to the great city of Nineveh, and guess what? Jonah obeyed God and did what He asked him to do.

That’s one more quality to love about God—He gives us repeated chances to change. If we don’t get the heavenly text this time, He will resend. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should put off our changes, but it does mean He is gracious.

Miraculously, after Jonah preached to the Assyrians, his arch enemies believed God and repented. I wish I could say there was a “happily ever after” to this story, but the ending didn’t quite go that way. After dealing with the situation, Jonah slipped right back into his own negative thoughts, and his thought temperature spiked again.

We must keep our focus on God to keep the negative thoughts from returning.

Jonah has a few good days, full of praising God for saving him from a dire situation but then he goes right back into the pit, back into the same negative thought patterns about the Assyrians. Does this sound familiar? We have some victory days, then we start dwelling on the bad, and soon, our temperature is getting hotter. How do we stop the cycle? How do we get well?

Here’s a suggestion. Try being your own thought thermometer!

Take your thought temperature on a regular basis. Notice especially the hot emotions—anger, anxiety, and jealousy. When you wake up in the middle of the night, do your thoughts churn so you can’t go back to sleep? Ask the Lord to renew your thoughts if they are not of Him.

Let God perform surgery and replace your thoughts with His thoughts. In Philippians 4:8, Paul encourages us, 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.

Take negative thoughts captive every time they cross your mind. Check your thought thermometer daily, because when your temperature goes back to normal and the glaze comes off your eyes, you will see a world out there that God wants you to reach.

If I Only Had…Wrapping Yourself in God’s Truth During Storms of Insecurity is now available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Nook. 

http://www.amazon.com/If-Only-Had-Wrapping-Insecurity/dp/0578141523/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410007542&sr=1-4&keywords=if+I+Only+Had…