IS YOUR FUTURE CONNECTED TO WHAT YOU THINK?

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THINK FOR YOURSELFBy Ada BrownellAdapted from her book. Imagine the Future YouAs children, we started thinking for ourselves when we gagged and spit out the spinach baby food and then decided which cold cereal we like best. If we were born into a poor Oriental family, we might like rice instead. If we lived in some African slums, we’d be grateful for slimy oatmeal gruel from a dirty bowl. In some parts of the world, you’d think putting live bugs between two slices of bread was a special treat, even though bugs crawled around on your fingers as you ate them. In other countries you’d eat dog and monkey. In times past, it was quite common for Americans to eat cow and pig brains and kidneys. They made “head cheese,” which was a meat jelly made from the head of a calf or pig. You can still buy pickled pig’s feet. I don’t know if they still sell head cheese but it became popular in a society that didn’t waste anything. In hard times, people also ate squirrels and turtles.
You cringe. Your stomach turns. That’s because you think for yourself and form an opinion. Your head is not empty now. You learned by experience and from other people. That’s the only way we assimilate knowledge. After we learn something, we usually can recall it spontaneously. We ride a bike without thinking about how we balance. We can type, text, cook, clean, repair cars, and program computers. We balance checkbooks, do income tax, use math to buy and sell, and make chemical formulas to create medicines that save people’s lives or to invent guns, bombs, and rockets to kill them. You can store billions of information blocks in your memory. According to Kenneth Higbee, author of Your Memory and How it Works and How to Improve it,The Bible says when we have a close relationship with God, He will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Yet, you decide whether or not to post that guard, the Holy Spirit, at the door. If we listen to what our conscience and scripture tells us, 24/7, and resist, Satan and his cohorts flee in fear.
The Holy Spirit, through our conscience, convinces us of sin (so we’ll know what it is), righteousness (so we’ll understand that), and judgment (so we’ll know God will reward those who live for Him and punish those who do not).
It helps to think on things that are true, things that are honorable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report.©Ada Brownell 2014


Philippians 4:18