Filling My Mind

I’m telling you, I love Tetris. I find it strangely soothing.  There’s just something so satisfying about those little colored blocks falling into the right spaces and then the whole thing dropping down when the rows line up right.  If I can keep Tetris and crossword puzzles around, I am a decent person to live with. I have found that if I’ve been playing a lot of the game, I “see” the pieces in my mind in moments of relaxation---listening to music or dropping off to sleep. 

It occurs to me that I should be this full of God’s word. His truth should so saturate my mind that in moments of reflection, I am thinking “The Lord is my shepherd” or “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” At first, it’s largely a matter of discipline, isn’t it? I purposely choose to put God’s word into my mind by reading and re-reading, by memorizing and reciting. 

Several years ago, Bea Ward challenged us at Grace to commit large portions of scripture to memory. If we can learn long lists of individual verses, we can learn long passages in context. This practice has been one of the most helpful things for me to incorporate into my life. So many times, my chosen passage for the month (It does take a while to learn a whole chapter!) applies to my life in numerous ways. I find opportunities to encourage others with the verses I’m learning, and I am instructed and admonished daily as I gain new insight into familiar scriptures.

One of our teacher in-service sessions at school was on incorporating biblical truth into lessons---math, history, English, and so on. Tina Holcombe made the observation that if we are walking in the Spirit and reading the Word daily, we will naturally be thinking of what God says about various issues. We will easily see God’s hand at work in the events of history, His power displayed in nature, and His wisdom portrayed in the principles of mathematics. And there’s no way to study literature without exploring important questions about sinfulness and forgiveness.

So these are the things God is teaching me these days. And the verse running through my mind this week?  “He that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and ensue it.” I Peter 3: 10-11. Look it up and read the whole chapter. It’s great! Better yet, join me in memorizing the chapter.

---Sherry Poff