Whatever you think about throughout the day, will affect your whole personality and mood. If you spend your day thinking about golf, you will become a golf fanatic. If you spend your time thinking about traveling, you’ll want to always be going somewhere or doing something… you will spend your day daydreaming about being somewhere on vacation.
If you spend your day thinking about the negative things around you and things you can complain about, you will develop a pessimistic personality. It will pull you down, and since pessimism and optimism are opposites, whichever one you allow to feed your mind will eventually push the other one farther and farther away.
One of the vital steps to developing a thankful personality, is to meditate (that is to think about often) the things that you have in your life to be thankful for. Make a list of the things God has done for you, and keep those things on your mind throughout the day. It may take a little more work at first, especially if your mind is programmed to think negatively. This process is the tearing down of strongholds and the renewing of your mind as God’s Word tells us:
Romans 12:2, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
How do we renew our minds? Do we renew them by sitting in church, daydreaming about other things? No, we renew our minds by feeding and meditating on uplifting things (blessings in our lives) and the truth in God’s Word. A pastor can help feed us the truth is he or she is preaching the Word of God as the Word was meant to be preached, but it is upto us to take what we hear and allow our minds to feast upon it. Philippines tells us what we are to set our minds upon… which includes the things that are uplifting, lovely, of good report, etc.
Philippines 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
