Christian Living

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Do you ever feel like you must be from another planet? Like you have landed here but cannot communicate because well, frankly, the people are all “aliens?” That is how I have felt many times. My first spoken words were probably to my grandmother. Along with many good traits, I inherited her accent. Grandmother came to Oklahoma with her family in a covered wagon as a teenager from Georgia.

My strong southern (Gia-ja) accent made my life miserable in school even though I was born in Oklahoma. I despised my accent. Kids claimed they could not understand me. When teased I became furious so it was naturally enormous fun to tease me. When they make fun of your accent in Oklahoma you have to wonder where you came from and how you got here. Another planet was their idea, not mine. By the time I was ten or eleven years old, I had converted it to a more acceptable “Okie” accent.

The way we speak carries a strong accent developed by generations of our ancestors. Our thought patterns develop in the very same way. There is an enormous impact of all those prior generations during our formative years when we are learning to think.

A strong “thought” accent can either help us or hurt us. Generations of oppression can produce a thought accent that notices every offense. Generations of royalty can produce a thought accent of entitlement. Most of us fall somewhere in between, vacillating between “unfairness” and “rights,” in our thinking.

Our “thought accent” is the language we use when speaking to ourselves. How we talk to ourselves sets the level or stability of our emotions. The thought patterns we inherit, develop, adopt, or drag home will be the language our mind comprehends. Thoughts we nurture and encourage become the flavoring on all we think we understand. Our “thought accent” can be so strong it interferes with our life. When we crawl out of our self-obsessed hole into the light of reality it can feel as if we have landed on another planet. We look around and think, “Beam me up, Scotty, these people do not speak my language.”

We can learn a new language. We have the free will to choose what we think. Be careful what you let wander around in your mind unescorted or unnoticed. Look around for the visiting relatives who have worn out their welcome. Search the rooms of your mind for unwelcome guests who just came to spend the night years ago.

With a spirit of adoption, God’s intention is to accept us into His family. In that same spirit, we can intentionally adopt a new thought language. Jesus left to us instructions and an inheritance. The value of that inheritance is beyond any material substance on earth. He gave us “authority to use, in His Name” the same power that resurrected him from the grave. He left for us the “right” to use His name and authority to cast out demons and vain imaginings from our minds. What an injustice and dishonor when we refuse to accept this inheritance, for it was bought and paid for with a very high price, the blood of Christ Jesus.

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