Stinkin’ Thinkin’ – Part 1 of The Armor of God Series

Take the helmet of salvation…- Ephesians 6:17

When my two oldest children were in grade school, I hosted and taught a Bible club in my home once a week. More than 30 kids hiked across the field after school and kicked off their muddy shoes or snowy boots on the floor I’d just cleaned. Dropping their backpacks and coats, they trooped into the living room, cookies and Kool-Aid in hand, and plopped down on the carpet. 

Most of the time I convinced myself the clutter didn’t matter – that there were eternal rewards for my efforts. But one time I let the mess get to me. 

After the crowd left, I sent my children upstairs to begin their homework while I started supper and cleaned up. I wasn’t seeing the eternal rewards right then – only the mud, puddles, crumbs and other residue left from a house-full of hungry, hopping kids. Are they even getting anything from the Bible lessons? I wondered, hurling my sweeper over the floor for the second time that day. Should I even bother?

The more I thought, the madder I got. When my oldest son came downstairs to ask me something, I snapped at him, letting loose a few words I thought I’d eliminated from my vocabulary.

“Mom,” he said, looking me straight in the eye, “Look at what Satan is doing to you.”

I stopped in mid-sweep. He was right. I was guilty of “stinkin’ thinkin’.” And those thoughts, set loose in my mind, slithered into my heart and poisoned the way I felt and, consequently, the way I acted.  

“Stinkin’ thinkin’” is sin, no matter how we try to justify it. And “sin” is not a popular word in today’s “feel good” society where everyone, it seems, is a victim of something or other. We do wrong things, we’re told, not because we were born with selfish, rebellious hearts, as the Bible teaches, but because we are reacting to something someone did along the way to hurt us or to life’s unfairness.

But sin is our whole problem. It is the seed, the root, the trunk, the branches, the rotten fruit. It is the Pandora’s box that separates us from a loving and holy God, and it must be routed if we are to become the persons God created us to be.

“The mind of sinful man is death,” St. Paul wrote, “but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6). I put on my “helmet of salvation” each time I choose to think only about those things that are true, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. This “helmet” protects my mind while the Holy Spirit transforms and renews it. 

What’s more – God has promised to keep in perfect peace those whose minds are “stayed” on Him (Isaiah 26:3). If I keep my thoughts on God, He will, in turn, give me a peace that will guard my thoughts and emotions – and, consequently, my actions. 

And that beats stinkin’ thinkin’ anytime.

Dear God, help me to choose to think the right thoughts, even when everything seems to be going wrong. Amen. 

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea, Vol. 3, © 2019 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.