We Become Our Obsession

When quiet, where does your mind go?

Photo by Danny Lines on Unsplash

I think about my thinking a lot. My mind wanders often, and eventually I start observing my mind wandering, followed by wondering how it wandered so far away from where I started.

It used to be I wondered what this means about the kind of mind I have that it wanders off so often and far. Now, not so much. Perhaps I have experienced enough life to finally understand that it isn’t as important to understand that my mind will wander, as it is to find it and bring it back to where it is most useful — and in the case of Psalm 1, most blessed.

Yesterday we were looking at this psalm’s first verse, today we finish the sentence.

but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1:2

The law is where the blessed man’s mind grazes.

So what is the law of the Lord?

Within the context of this Jewish text, it is certainly the Pentateuch — or the first five books of the Old Testament, but we need not stop there.

I believe we should be seeking God’s laws in all of life. God is orderly. He created, according to the first book of the Pentateuch, Genesis (meaning “beginnings“). Psalm 19:1 states that the heavens declare the glory of God.

So I believe the healthy thought life is a constant meditation about what I am experiencing and how it connects with what God is doing. It is bringing heaven into my world as often as my mind is able to think in this way.

Finally, let’s link the wandering mind to the lost sheep story Jesus told in Luke 15.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

[First, the context for the story]

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable:

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Luke 15:1-7 (ESV)

The true power of this story comes when we realize that we are that singularly unique lost sheep.

We are the sinner the world of scoffers detest.

Our minds wandered off in search of greener fields of thoughts only to discover sadness and despair.

Then Jesus finds us and, rather than adding to the voices of condemnation, he lifts us on his shoulders and carries us home to dwell forever in his pasture, protected by his laws of life.

This is why meditating in this field becomes a delight. It is connected with one’s own transformed life.