Week 4 Day 5: Think About What Is Lovely

"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” Philippians 4:8 NASB

Our thoughts are like a train taking us to our destination. Just because a train is in front of us doesn’t mean it’s the one we should jump on. The wrong train will take us to a place we don’t want to go, and so will the wrong thoughts. Switching trains is not easy, but it is the only way to get to where we really want to go. Lovely thoughts help us to switch the tracks and head in the right direction.

When we think about what is lovely, we think about great beauty. These are not thoughts that pertain to sexual beauty or physical attraction, but the attraction of an inner beauty, or emotions. These are delightful thoughts of beauty, harmony and grace. They are loving thoughts of moral or ideal worth.

Lovely thoughts are brave thoughts that we think on purpose and by choice. They are first class, grand and awesome thoughts; noble, superior and wonderful. When circumstances fall heavy on us, we choose to think about what is lovely, to look for the good and cause our thoughts to dwell on that, not the bad. If our child is in a wreck, we can dwell on the joy that our child is ok and be thankful, or we can dwell on the cost to fix the car and be bitter.

Where our thoughts go, our emotions and mental well-being go as well. For Christ followers, when bad circumstances arise, we focus our thoughts on the most lovely things of all, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We know that God will always bring beauty from ashes and good from what was meant to be evil. But if we don’t give Him our destructive thoughts, He won’t transform them.

God gives us the freedom to keep the pain or to give it to Him. In our hands pain creates more pain, but in God’s hands, pain can become a gift. He is the only source of creative power where pain is transformed into beauty and joy. We don’t have the ability to make a man from a pile of dust, must less turn ashes into beauty. So, we think about what is lovely and allow God’s creative power to work.

This doesn’t mean we walk around with a constant smile on our face. There will be times we will struggle with people and/or our circumstances. But we can be full of joy for the Lord because He is good and He makes all things, even bad things work together for good. Those are some lovely thoughts.

It’s lovely to thank Him in all things, good, bad—even horrible. This is not at all easy to do. It takes time to really become a thankful person. But lovely thoughts are the seeds for thanksgiving that will choke off bitterness and unhealthy thoughts. Lovely thoughts set our feet on a good path, taking us to the destination our hearts secretly desire. 

Is it your first instinct to be thankful, even when hard things happen? How can you work to become a more thankful person?

Meditate on "whatever is lovely" today.