Waking Thoughts

First posted February 2020

For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace…
Romans 8:6 NASB

I pay attention to my waking thoughts.

Ever since I discovered a poem by George MacDonald, tucked away in an old notebook on my husband’s shelf, my waking thoughts have been captured and inspired by God’s Wind-Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. I have invited Him to do that.

Otherwise, my waking thoughts were being filled with the anxieties of life, the trap of the flesh aided by the enemy of my soul. Instead, I acknowledge my God as my King and myself as His bondservant.

And so I take my waking conscious thoughts seriously. It may be a scripture, a song, a topic, a concern or person for prayer. And I can’t tell you how many times I may end up meeting that person or revisiting that topic or Scripture that very day. Amazing! But not really . . . because I think this is the “normal Christian life” — life in the Spirit, not in the flesh!

So here’s the poem. I encourage you, dear sibling in the family of God, to ask the Holy Spirit to capture your waking thoughts that you too may yield yourself to your King. Then pay attention to those waking thoughts day by day. You may also be amazed and delighted and grateful as you often will see those God-inspired thoughts unfold in your day.

Fifteen Minutes to Freedom*
George MacDonald

With every morn my life afresh must break
The crust of self, gathered about me fresh;
That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shake
The darkness out of me, and rend the mesh
The spider-devils spin out of the flesh—
Eager to net the soul before it wake.
That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 ESV

*From A Book of Strife, in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul, October 10.