As every coach is bound to say at some time … “Practice makes perfect.” The idea is simple: practicing reinforces the right (or wrong) way to play the game. Practice creates habits — allowing our reactions to become second nature rather than having to stop and think about them.
When it comes to your thought life, what are you practicing?
If you allow yourself to think angry thoughts, you are practicing how to get angry. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, when we react in anger to something that upsets us.
If you continually entertain thoughts of being inferior, you will feel inferior. Which will lead to acting inferior. Why? You were practicing.
In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul describes the importance of being disciplined with our thoughts:
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).
For Paul, there were no such things as idle thoughts.
Too often we do not take control of our thoughts. We allow our minds to park in unfriendly territory. We feed destructive thoughts rather than taking them captive and moving on to something better.
So, when it comes to your thought life … what are you practicing?