Week 3 Day 6: Don't Feed The Bad Wolf

W3D6: Don’t Feed The Bad Wolf

“Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.” Romans 12:21 NLT

There is an old Indian tale about two wolves living inside each of us, one is evil and the other is good. A young Indian boy asked his wise grandfather, “Which one wins?” His grandfather said, “The one you feed.” Whatever you feed in life will grow, including your thoughts, and what you let go will die. Our primary goal shouldn’t be stopping our unhealthy thoughts or evil in the world. Our focus should be on heathy thoughts and doing what’s good and right for others.

Our brains are malleable and they are cultivated every minute of every day by what we see, hear, watch and do. We may intend to have healthy thoughts but good intentions are not enough. We must actively seek information that will cultivate our thoughts in positive and healthy ways. We have to be careful and choose what we allow to enter through the portals of our eyes and ears. We may watch movies or TV to entertain and listen to music to relax, but relaxing means we let our guard down. We need to weigh what we see, hear and experience as either beneficial for healthy thoughts or destructive to them. They are one OR the other, but information is never neutral.

We pray for God to heal us and He will; but we have to do our part in the healing process. We are called to work with Him to create heaven on earth, this includes working toward our own healing. God tells us to cultivate the ground, we are not supposed to sit around and wait for Him to do it for us. It’s our part, so we need to get up and get busy. When we respond to what He tells us and work in conjunction with how He sees us, not how the world sees us or how we see ourselves, we find healing.

We view life and people according to our own self-perceptions. We don’t see things as they really are, we see things as we are. If our egos are over or under inflated we can have a very warped and detrimental perspective. Our flesh tells us that everything is all about us. If someone is whispering, they're talking about us, if someone cuts us off in traffic, they have been rude to us...like they did it because we don’t matter. So often our perception of things is seen incorrectly through our lens of limited fleshy self-dwelling thoughts. This is why we need to see people and circumstances from God’s perfect perspective.

Thoughts are powerful because our lives always move in the direction of our strongest thoughts. Renewing our thoughts is central to our healing and living life to its fullest. We can feed our thoughts with the Word of God or with the word of the world. One will grow stronger, the other weaker and the strongest influence will always win. God will not take control of our thoughts; they are ours to choose. We can choose His thoughts and desires or the world’s.

What if we are holding on to a view that is holding us back? What direction are your thoughts taking you?

Meditate on Romans 12:21 today