Christian Living

Clear Thinking

by Gary Farrell
05/22/16
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Clear Thinking

I believe that as Christians it is my duty and I’m responsible to extend the grace that was so freely given me.  And I’m convinced a Good Christian should be known by what we stands for, not what we stand against.  Grace sparkles with the love of God which is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional.  Soldiers and first responders have been known to willing sacrifice their life for others.  How many of us, I wonder, would willingly sacrifice our only child to be tortured and murdered to save those who showed us little more than utter disrespect?  God did that.  This is the type of love that we are commissioned to share with those who would call us friend, and also to those who would declare us enemies.  To those who would disagree with our values, religion and political leanings.  Jesus said in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”  Let’s not parse words here, none of us is perfect, but does Jesus really not even care that we attempt to keep his commands? 

The ability to habitually demonstrate grace requires meticulous thinking.  I don’t know about others, but this is not easy to acquire for me.  I seem to have developed natural defense mechanisms early in life that allows me to recall past events as pictures in my mind, then in anger, build upon and twist them so that I do not have to look at the truth about myself nor my part in those events.  These defense mechanisms must be overcome otherwise they cause me to impose unrealistic expectations on other people and myself.  These expectations are premeditated resentments that are the root of defects of character.  They strive to keep my life anarchic and determined to make me want to feel wounded.  They result in self-pity, shame, and fear.  When driven by resentment it is impossible for me to demonstrate proper or correct thinking, and the absence of clear thinking precludes me from virtue.  I have discovered that I must continually question my own beliefs.  I need to talk about my crazy ways of thinking with friends, support groups, pastors and anyone else that will listen.  I need to ask them to call me on my crazy thoughts when I express them.  Steel sharpens steel and one friend sharpens another.  When I smack my thumb with a hammer and express the thought, “Boy am I’m stupid”, I must immediately recognize that it is non sequitur.

The human mind abhors the unknown, but I run into about a million questions every day that I don’t have the answer to.  Now if I were a computer I would lock up and refuse to continue.  Every time I ran into something I didn’t have an answer to I would be like Dustin Hoffman in ‘Rain Man’ refusing to eat my pancakes because the syrup was not placed on the table in proper sequential order.  But I’m a functioning human, so my mind makes an assumption that allow me to move on.  Unfortunately it is far more important that these assumptions satisfy the need to know than that they be in anyway accurate.  My problem is making such an assumption and running with it without admitting that it is just hypothesis and may not in deed be factual.  I need to develop the habit of thinking of alternate reason that things happen.  For example, the reason that other driver just cut me off on the freeway may not be because he is a totally evil person whom I must pursue past my own exit to get even with.  Seriously, jumping to conclusions is acting on an assumption as if it were the truth without checking it out, and I can do that in the blink of an eye.

I have a strong tendency to see the present and future through the eyes of the past.  I want to assume what’s about to happen is based on something that already happened without realizing that it is an assumption and may not be true.  Just about all my choices are based on this perspective.  I have a favorite coffee cup, a favorite pen, a favorite food as well as things that I’m positive I will not like at all.  All of these decisions are based on past experience that I have a tendency to never question.  I’ll bet I haven’t eaten okra in 40 years, and when I did I don’t know that it was properly prepared, but I’m certain I don’t like it.  I have a tendency to want to focus on another person’s past behavior, to stick with some old resentment to the point that I absolutely will not recognize the other person has changed.  I can only see that person as the one with whom I have some unresolved resentment.

Something I learned a long time ago is that I’m prone to subjective and egocentric thinking, and have a tendency to take too much stuff personally.  Working with other Christians I have come to realize that I’m not the only person subject to this type of thinking, it seems to be rather prevalent among humans.  I can imagine myself in New Orleans during Katrina thinking, “God why did this happen to me?”  I came to recognize that I was thin skinned and that my little feelers were easily hurt, and when I’m at the top of my game I can sense rejection from a glance by someone 50 yards away.  It is this that I’ve had to work on more than almost anything else in my personality.  What, why and how to toughen-up.  My tendencies were to suffer in silence saying to myself, “They make me feel…..” I had to accept the fact that nobody has the power to make me feel anything.  I decide how I feel about everything.  I decide what’s good, I decide what’s bad, and often I have to ask God to help me accept the seemingly bad along with the seemingly good as necessary for my Christian growth.

There are a lot of other obstacles I have found to clear and meticulous thinking. The important thing is to recognize that these obstacles exist and stop ignoring them.  I’m not entitled to be angry if other people do not agree with my opinions and values, and I’m certainly not entitled to attack them, belittle them or treat them with anything other than grace.  It is my opinion that as Christians I am commissioned to feel empathy, tolerate the opinions and feelings of others, respect their feelings with compassion, and that’s my business.  It’s not my business to judge them, and it is not my business to force them to change, or hurt them.  It is my business to love them, and that is none of their business.