“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2 NIV

What I put in is what comes out. I wrote this same thing in “Mind Over Matter and Emotions (the battlefield), part 1.” I’ve known it from experience for a while now. I’ve practiced it since then. 

And I forgot it.  

I couldn’t figure out why writing’s been so hard the last few blog posts. I didn’t remember my old habit of letting busyness get in the way and I fell back into it. I felt like I was running on empty because I put words out there, but I wasn’t taking time to refill. I became preoccupied with my goal instead of God. 

It’s funny now because I know better, and I let it happen while writing about renewing our minds. Maybe overlooking the obvious will make a big enough impact that I remember it for the duration of this manuscript – what I put in is what comes out. 

Since I want to write positive and inspirational words, I listen to and read positive and inspirational words. I can’t emphasize how important this is to live by. I didn’t know how bad I felt and how preoccupied I was with negativity until I stopped it. 

During a recent sermon, our pastor filled a glass jar with ping-pong balls to illustrate how many thoughts, a lot of them negative, a woman has every minute. 

Then, to demonstrate how to overcome the chaos (the battlefield) in our minds, he poured water into the jar that symbolized God’s word. The more he poured, the more balls floated to the top and overflowed onto the floor. 

When we tune out disturbing news and movies and gossip and tune into encouraging stuff like our Bibles, unwanted thoughts fall right out of our heads, roll away, and are replaced by positive and inspiring ones. 

This is how our minds are renewed. 

Writing and life get harder when we don’t remember to think about what we’re thinking about, and when we don’t do something to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts because …

What we put in is what comes out. 

In This Together,
Kim

FYI: I’m blogging my book titled On The Other Side of Trying Hard: Healing, Happiness, and Holiness. Because these blog posts are a manuscript instead of stand-alone stories, some posts may leave you hanging. I hope you’ll hang in here with us anyway ‘cause a happy ending is coming. My blog post title includes the chapter title first. The phrase in parentheses is the subheading. I’m over-the-top grateful to have you here. I’d love to hear your reflections, questions, and comments.