Minding Your Thoughts
A Biblical Overview of Obtaining and Maintaining a Biblical Thought Life
Job 34:33 Should it be according to thy mind? he will recompense it, whether thou refuse, or whether thou choose; and not I: therefore speak what thou knowest.
You probably at least have a passing knowledge of Job. He lost everything but his wife and his life. The richest man of the east became the poorest overnight, plus he lost ten children at one time to a premature death. His friends came to be with him during this awful time, but instead of comforting Job, they began to accuse Job of wrongdoing. Elihu was one of these four friends; it was he that spoke the quote above. In fact, Elihu began his tirade against Job and the other three friends at the beginning of chapter 32. In his anger he accused Job greatly, but in his angry words we find a truth, a truth having to do with our mind.
Elihu states in today’s verse: “Should it be according to thy mind?” A peek at the previous two verses will help us understand this, for they say: Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more: That which I see not teach thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more. Elihu then says to Job, “Should it be according to thy mind?” Evidently, he is saying to Job, “Just because you think it doesn’t make it so.”
There are people like this, they think that just because they think a thing it is so as if they are the final bastion of all that is wrong or right. For example, they hear a preacher preach about something that they have never heard before and automatically think, “Well, I never heard that so it can’t possibly be true.” The Pharisees were like this in Jesus’ day. They thought that Jesus was a danger, so in their mind it was so. Their belief system was so challenged that this is recorded in Matthew 12:14. Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. They had no evidence that Christ was doing anything worthy of death. In fact, as a Biblical fact Luke wrote in Acts 10:38, How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. But the Pharisees thought the Lord was a danger so, to them He was a danger.
This is a dangerous game to play. This thing of one’s mind making things up and setting them forth as reality. After all, should all things be according to thy mind? A mind can spin a web of deceit so plausible that it seems a reality. For example, the thief that opened a jewelry store thought that everyone that came into the store was going to rob him. He projected that which he thought based upon his own behavior, not theirs.
No one has heard it all, no one has all knowledge, no one is the final arbiter of what is right and wrong or true or false. In the mind there are many wonderful thoughts and truths that can be known, even proven, but to simply believe a thought without evidence does not make it true. This man Elihu was angry, yes, he misspoke, yes, he was perhaps impetuous, yes, but in this one thought he was right. “Should it be according to thy mind?” Not always! Yes, certainly, know what you know, but know this also, no one knows everything but God. Throughout life not everything is going to be according to what your mind thinks it should be. What a great relief it is to know that we have the power, the right, and the responsibility to choose or refuse the thoughts that creep into our mind. That is a thought to be visited on another day.
May the Lord Bless and be pleased with your thought life today.
William T. Howe, Ph.D.
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