Reset the Foundations: Mastering the Art of Intentional Thought in Desert Places

Hey y'all, I'm Gilon Marts. This is The Walking Well podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and for listening, for watching however you're getting the podcast. We're in season seven, and season seven is all about wilderness places, difficult, dry, uncomfortable spaces that we can find ourselves in as believers, as a nation, as a world. Things have just been super weird lately and lately is the past three years for some of us but this podcast season is all about what it takes to make it through that, the skills, the tools, the things that God has given me, as I find myself in places where things are changing, the landscape is unfamiliar and I'm not really sure what's going on. So today we are talking about the necessity of having a disciplined and controlled thought life. The big thing about being- one of the big things about being in the wilderness is that you're vulnerable. You're in a place where you might be tired, you might be weary, you might be disappointed, you might be grieving, you might just be in a real unfamiliar space, and that is all a vulnerable place for you, for your heart, for your mind, for your soul. And I think sometimes, when we find ourselves out here where things are changing, where things don't look like we expected or anticipated. It's really easy to start to let your mind wander, to consider things, to entertain things, to engage things that, in a healthier season, you may not really have been open to. And, man, i think it's also really important to know that the enemy uses the power of suggestion at will, like that's just his MO. He's never going to hit you with a full frontal unless it's like a kill shot and you're already down. But the enemy uses the power of suggestion and our minds are like massive computers, and so it can get really tempting to be lazy in this area and to not stay tightened up, to not stay armed up to the teeth, but we still have an enemy that goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom we may devour. You are in a vulnerable place, and I think about every situation where someone found themselves in a desert place. They were vulnerable, whether it was the children of Israel, whether it was Joseph and the pit hello, hagar taking off from Abraham and Sarah, jesus after fasting. Like these are vulnerable, vulnerable spaces. Our thought life is central, still, is still important. I think you know when you're in an abundant season, a season of abundance where things are going well, they look like they should. You know, like, oh yeah, i'm supposed to guard my heart, oh yeah, i think on these things. But when you find yourself where, like things are upside down, something about that space makes you go like, wait a second, and you take some of the guardrails off and are willing to, like, entertain and engage in behavior and poor mental health hygiene really and not stay disciplined about your thoughts and where your thoughts go. And so the first thing to know is that the wilderness, the desert, is a vulnerable place And in vulnerable places you don't abandon the things that you know to do. It's even more important that you stay hydrated, that you protect your skin, that you do things, and then that you know, like, if you run a physical wilderness right, like you don't stop drinking water because you're in the desert and you've never been here before. It's even more important to make sure that you do the things that you know to do, and the same goes for your spirit, the same goes for your soul. You don't abandon the ABCs. Instead, you really kind of sometimes need to double down on those, be extra particular, extra sensitive to making sure that you're doing the things you know to do for good, spiritual, mental, emotional, soul health, right. And so the desert place is tricky, it can get really tricky, i know. For me, i have to be mindful that I can't weigh all the potential outcomes and possibilities, because I was, i had the tendency to spiral, and like just spiraling is like making yourself sick, right, because you're, you're worrying, you're anxious, you're tired, you're not sleeping well, you might not be eating, or your brain is just running, running, running, running, running, and that is no way to live Like. You can't live an abundant life when your mind is running and when it's engaging in all the potential possibilities and what if and what if and what if and what if you can't, you cannot be healthy. There's no way to be healthy living life that way. And so instead we have to be intentional, even more intentional than you would be. You know, i think sometimes abundance seasons make us a little lazy and a little loose and a little lax And you can get caught slipping. But when you find yourself here in a space where you're in the unknown, you're in the unfamiliar, in the uncomfortable, it's not the time to fall off of your disciplines. In fact, it's the time to go back to what you know, to revisit those things to put yourself in remembrance. And so having a disciplined thought life is a core tenet of a believer's life, is a core tenet of any healthy person's life, And you have to be mindful of what you're thinking, what you're thinking on right. I told you guys in an earlier episode, proverbs 15, 15 says all the days. Well, it basically says your days can be made evil by desponding, by anxious foreboding thoughts. And it's not that your days are evil, it's that your days are made evil by evil forebodings and anxious thoughts. And so you can have a perfectly good day but, by the way that you're moving about in your own head, in your own mind, can create a reality for you that's not necessarily the reality. Right, like everybody else is having a great time, and you could just be biting your fingernails like, oh, my god, what's gonna happen? And what about this? And what if they say this? And what if this doesn't happen? What if this happens? How am I gonna handle that? And you're 15 years in the future, a potential future, something that may not even happen. And so my encouragement is to be disciplined, be intentional about your thought life. You know, proverbs 4, philippians 4, 6 through 8 really does list how we should move and maneuver and navigate our thoughts. Think on things that are lovely, just pure, honest, worthy of praise, excellent, of a good report, weigh on, meditate, consider these things, take these things into account, because meditation is like it's not. I mean, i feel like it's a little bit like magnification, but meditation, thinking on something, is like digging deep, burrowing into that thing. And so sometimes we burrow, but we're spiraling, as opposed to burrowing and digging into, like a well of water, right, a source of water. And so when you meditate, if you're meditating on things that are lovely, just pure, you're digging into a wellspring to get something that's gonna be nourishing. When you're meditating and weighing on things that are negative, that are things you hope to not happen, things that are fearful or cause anxiety, you're just spiraling. It's like a downward, just into nothingness. And that's the thing about anxiousness, anxiety and anxious thoughts. You could be thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking and you are blowing through your day. You are blowing through these like number days that you have as opposed to being present and living fully in the moment, because God gives us daily bread, each day, he gives us what we need and every day that God creates is a good day. But if we are spending our energy and our time on thinking about what may or may not happen, we are sapping literally the vitality out of our day and out of ourselves. And so being intentional is just basically training your brain, your brain, treated like a muscle, right? Be intentional about the things that you feed on, that you nourish with your mind. Your mind is a field, it is your plot of land that you are responsible for. You are the steward of your mind, we are the stewards of our minds. And so if weeds are growing there, that's on us, right. If it's barren and nothing really growing, that's on us too. If it's flourishing and thriving, we've tended to it well and partnered with God in the thing. And so, just looking at the field of our minds, like, okay, what's growing here? Because I am, you know, i'm seeding it. I'm seeding my soil, and soil does not discriminate, it's going to grow whatever you put in it. Whether you put a seed of corn or you put a marijuana seed is not going to be like, oh, can I grow that here? It's going to grow it because that's what soil does. And so your heart, your mind just produced their soil. And it's on us to be intentional with what we're seeding. So one of the things that I teach my clients in the therapy space is the connection between feelings, thoughts and actions. We call it a little triangle, and so essentially, when we have a feeling, oftentimes we react to that feeling with the thought right, and it could be a negative or positive thought, but we go. I have this feeling, i have a thought in response to that feeling, whether that thought is true or not. And if we meditate on that thought long enough, it then becomes an action, and so that our thoughts are literally creating our reality. And one of the things I teach my clients, young and older, is reframing. You can take, you can have any kind of feeling in the world. You get to decide what thought is going to stay and is going to be meditated on and watered right in that space. And so if my thought, if I have a feeling of being, you know, like I don't know what's going on, this is, i have no idea what's happening My feeling could be like I'm uncertain. My thought could be oh my gosh, it's been so long of being uncertain, things are never going to change. I'm always going to be in this place, and then my action might be, i don't choose to not even choose to, then my posture in life, my position is defeated. It's like I'm never going to be able to get through this space right. I may not try things, i may not ask God for things. I'm not going to be in hope, i'm not going to be in faith, i'm not going to be in expectation. I'm not going to have a confession that this is the day the Lord has made. I'm going to rejoice in it. Today is going to be a good day, god. I'm expecting to see you and see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I'm not going to do that if my thought is I'm defeated, i'm behind, i'm below, i'm beneath. I'm not going to engage in life in that way. But if I start with the feeling of man, i don't know what's going on, my next thought the one that I choose to water and to choose to meditate could be. but God does, and God is faithful. I don't know what's happening, but this isn't a surprise to God. God knows exactly what's going on. This isn't the first time I've been in a place where I don't know what's happening. God, i'm looking to you. You may not be speaking to me, but maybe now, in this season, i need to trust that you order my steps, whether I know that you're doing that actively or not. My steps are being ordered of you. You enlarge the path beneath my feet. There are no mistakes in God. That's what I'm going to believe about my day And I'm going to declare that, and I'm going to move in life that way. I'm not defeated. I'm above and above. Only That's who I am. That may be how I show up. If that's the thought, the types of thoughts that I nurture and I meditate on, and so your thoughts really are the difference between how you go through life and even thinking on the birds of the field, the lilies of the air Matthew 6, like, hey, god takes care of them. That's like consider this, meditate on, look at this. Hey, you see these lilies, you see these wildflowers on the side of the interstate. Nobody planted those. Look how pretty they are. Oh, my gosh, they're decorated more beautifully than the richest king that ever lived. Aren't you worth more than they? This is my meditation, these are the bounds of my thought life. Right, This is the discipline, this is the training. I run my thoughts through An athlete. Hey you go to. You know, when we play basketball, we were always in the sun conditioning at the beginning of the season because we knew there was a game, you know, a whole full season we had to play later. And so some of us, our minds, are out of conditioning, they're out of shape, really, they just kind of float and flop wherever. And I'm just challenging us to be more disciplined, i'm challenging us to be more rigorous in what we allow and don't allow, what we filter out when it comes to our thought life, because our thought life is running things. The thoughts that we entertain, that we engage, that we sit with, that we nourish, that we water like plants, those are the things that are going to grow and ultimately frame our reality and frame our view of ourselves and our view of God. And so, you know, reframing, like what I just talked about with our thoughts, is something that you can do to help get your mind into shape Practicing gratitude. There's a guy on Instagram, dr Amin, who talks about, really like, how he sets up himself himself, how he sets himself up to sleep well, and he talks about going through his day like a treasure hunt and thinking about and trying to pick out the parts of the day that Went well, right, and I think you know the world is really on a gratitude tip, but the Lord has definitely already told us like it, you know, it's important for you to Wage on the good, think on the good, consider what God is doing over there, think about what God is doing over here, remember that time when the Lord came through for you. That's all gratitude, starting with God. I thank you and everything that Jesus said. He started with giving thanks, lord. Thank you for God. I thank you for this bread that we're about to receive. Lord, bless this bread. Thank you that we, like Jesus, started with thanks and thanksgiving, with Thanksgiving. Offer up your prayers and thoughts to God. You know your request, make your question own to God, and so thanksgiving, gratitude, taking thought, for this is what's going well, this is what's going right, this is a God moment, this was a God wink. Lord, i know this thing is on my mind and I saw you Ministered that that request I had. Taking thought of all of that nourishes your soul, it builds you up. It's like feeding on something that's actually going to Make you stand up taller on the inside, because the desert gets hard, the wilderness is uncomfortable, but it's even worse when we're not disciplined in our thought life. So that's my encouragement to you guys this week to be disciplined in your thoughts. I have a friend. She and I were talking kind of about this very thing and she was saying that the Lord was sent to her, like how you need to narrow your thoughts and You know, i really like the way that that the Lord put that for her This idea of maybe you're considering all of these things, maybe you're picking, you know, dipping your cup in all these different pools of thought, and it might be a good idea to just kind of Bring it in, come back to center and go wait. What are the boundary lines for my thought life? because I can't, i can't just not have boundaries. No, we know, and at least by now, the importance of boundaries from social media, pop psychology and all of that. Boundaries are good, they're important, they're helpful for us and for others. They let us know what's able to stay in and what's able to stay out. You know and it makes me think of the scripture God is not came to spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind, a sober mind, a Disciplined mind, and so you are empowered to have a disciplined thought life, but it's definitely on you and it's on me to make sure that we put those boundary lines in place for what goes and what stays out, because self-control is a fruit of the spirit. So it's not just that we're supposed to be thinking on all the things we are supposed to be regulating and Be intentional about the thoughts, the seed we allow to be planted in our hearts and in our minds. So that's my encouragement Set up some boundaries, set up some guidelines. Even if you make a list of ten things these are my rules for my thought life and post it somewhere You can see it. You know, i don't think on, i don't think on, i do meditate on, i do think of, i do take weight of. I start my day waking up with gratitude. I end my day going to bed saying you know, lord, thank you for this, this and this. Set some rules up for your thought Life, some really tangible one, so that when a thought flies through as you're training your mind, you know oh wait, that's breaking rule number two We don't, we don't think on negative outcomes, right? So that's my encouragement to you guys this week, if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel. Go over there and subscribe. You're not subscribed. Wherever you get your podcast, do that. If you've not left a rating on Apple podcasts, you can also do that and comment. I love to like, reflect and talk back with y'all in the spaces where comments are allowed. So thanks again. I'll talk to you guys next week. Make it a great one. Bye.