As I sit to type this post, I marvel that we are turning the calendar into the final quarter of this year. The retail stores are full of autumn and Christmas decorations and I find myself looking forward to special meals and times with family and friends. Whether we consciously recognize it or not, we measure all of our lives in some sort of fraction. Maybe it is the quarterly reports we produce at work, or the fraction of sugar we add to our recipe or the portion of time we designate for reading, exercising or some other hobby. We are constantly dividing our time, our attention, our money and resources to meet the demands of our lives. And yet, we come to a full stop when we read….

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with allyour heart and with allyour soul and with all your might.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with allyour heart and with allyour soul and with allyour mind.” 

Matthew 22:37

We may divide up our time, our money, our calendar and our recourses but how do we reconcile those fractions with the wholistic commands that God gives in His Word? This really is the deep question for every soul who wants to live a life in Jesus. Notice that God has already implied the divine fractions of our make up.

*our heart
*our soul
*our might/strength
*our mind

Though God makes clear that we are composed of these parts, He lovingly commands that we love Him back with ALL of each of these areas because in loving Him with our all, we marvelously and supernaturally become the whole person He designed us to be. 

This year, our collective has weekly poured out our hearts through words and in light of the Word of God in hopes of applying this very concept. To live whole hearted, whole souled, whole strengthened and now we embark upon the last facet of our make up as humans….

Whole Minded

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word “Mind” as: 
~ the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought: as the thoughts ran through his mind, he came to a conclusion | people have the price they are prepared to pay settled in their minds.
~ a person’s mental processes contrasted with physical action: I wrote a letter in my mind.

The mind is a mysterious thing indeed. In the mind we have seemingly limitless imaginings that give birth to some of the most supernatural and brilliant ideas, music, art, inventions, etc. While simultaneously teetering on the fragile and delicate balance of insanity. The mind can create scenarios that even Stephen Spielberg would be jealous of and moments later be so despairing or confused about what to make for dinner. 

How could we ever tame this marvelous mental monster? Furthermore, how could we ever harness it’s power to love God with every musing, every random rabbit trail, every dark hint of despair? 

Every thought we have contains the ability to either foster joy or pain; peace or fear; glory or condemnation. This is why God desires that we love Him with every ounce of our mind! 

“The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”  – John Milton

Along those same lines, Paul instructs us in his second letter to the Corinthians this way…

“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

2 Corinthians 10:5

For the next several weeks we are going to be writing about and thinking through what it looks like to live with whole minds. Minds that embrace the vastness of creativity and imaginations and yet harness them to serve the Source of all creation. I pray that we will be brilliant people who exercise every part of our minds to the end that God is glorified in the seen and unseen realms of creation. 

Oh Father, we acknowledge that You created all things and as Your people, You have graciously given us the ability to think, to create, to imagine, to dream. We confess that often times we allow the enemy of our souls to twist our thoughts to serve ourselves, our weakness, our fears, and his dark purposes of rebellion to Your kingdom. We surrender our minds to You, King Jesus and ask that Your Spirit empower us to use every thought as a vehicle for Your glory.