May 20, 2018

The Highest Use of the Human Mind

. . . I meditate on all Your works;

I muse on the work of Your hands.

I spread out my hands to You;

My soul longs for You like a thirsty land.

Psalm 143:5‑6

Just as there is no higher object of our thinking than God, there is no higher use of our minds than to think about God reverently. If we think of our minds as "instruments" that God entrusted to us, the most noble and powerful use to which those instruments can be put is to use them meditating on God in a way that properly reflects God's glory. Most of us do meditate on God from time to time, but we can do better about it than we do. In regard to the use of our minds, most of us make two mistakes.

First, we don't think about God enough. Yes, we think about God while offering thanks before meals, while doing our daily Bible reading, and while attending church services. But few of us have cultivated the habit of meditating on God as we go about the round of our daily activities. And perhaps fewer of us have ever retreated from our regular activities for times (perhaps a day or two) of extended prayer and concentration on God, God's self.

But second, we don't think about God reverently enough. Even when we do think about God, too frequently we think only of what we need God to do for us, rather than meditate on God for God’s own sake. Our thoughts about God are too self‑centered and selfishly motivated. We must learn to think about God in such a way that our ideas are characterized by words like these: awe, wonder, worshipfulness, penitence, humility, gratitude, and love.

One consequence of our failure to think often and reverently about God is that our actions toward God tend to be weak and ineffectual. We are not as powerfully motivated as we would be if our thoughts dwelled on God more worshipfully and for greater lengths of time. There's no use denying that our actions spring from our thinking — and if our thinking were to be filled with the adoration of God, just imagine what the result would be! Our deeds would be drawn toward God with a force that all the evil armies of hell would be helpless to stop.

"Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and the weightiest word in any language is its word for God."

...A. W. Tozer