At age nineteen I had an incredible family who I stayed with for a year. They were, and still are important friends, and, in the case of the parents, mentors. On the mantlepiece right next to the dinner table sat a giant-size memory verse card. It
read:
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8 NLT
That verse, and the card became very popular and involved numerous challenges to the mentor Dad, as we would often invite him to recite the verse by heart. I don’t think he ever quite pulled off that particular assignment! But he created a whole lot of lively hustle around the things of God, and presented this [fairly soiled] memory card to me on my 21st birthday.
The verse captured my nineteen -year old heart. Translations use words like Meditate,’ ‘think about,’ ‘fix your mind,’ ‘fix your thoughts’ on the beautiful things. I had discovered that if I spent too much time thinking about avoidance of the sinful things, I found myself at risk of doing them. Instead, here was Paul giving me super practical advice that offered me a positive. A “do” rather than a “don’t.”
The other great thing is that Paul’s instruction is actionable. It’s a verb, “fix” your mind. I loved this, and still do. There’s plenty of ugly things, negative things to think about: fear-based things, lustful things, useless things, angsty things. It can be really hard to just switch these thoughts off.
Paul’s giving us an achievable strategy here. He’s counselling us to “Fix” on the beautiful things. How can we do that? Worship? Reading Psalms? Creating some kind of art? Walking and meditating? Writing a note of encouragement to someone? What’s your beautiful discipline? I know people who intercede every morning from 2-3 AM. That’s not something I’ve been able to pull off. Our mind fixing habit has got to work for us. One of my “Fix’s” [ironically] is bible memorisation. Over time it’s become a hobby. Something I actually enjoy.
What’s your fix? And what kind of beauty does it bring you?