Study – Grow – Know

Thought Patterns

July 17, 2023 at 10:59 AM 4 comments

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Psalm 145:17-20 states the following:

17 The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works.
18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
20 The Lord preserves all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy.

The above text from Psalm 145 is a praise Psalm of David. He knew personally and first hand how the Lord provided for those who loved and feared Him. The entire passage quoted above speaks to God’s attention to our needs, if we come before Him with the right attitude.

Starting with verse 17, David begins pointing out truths that every believer needs to internalize.

17 The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works.
18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
20 The Lord preserves all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy.

This entire section provides proof of God’s nearness and concern for those who:

• call upon Him in truth
• fear Him
• love Him

Notice that God is near to those who do the three things above. It’s as if He is leaning in, ready to hear their prayers and answer them swiftly. Why? Because He sees the heart of the person who calls upon Him in truth, fears Him and loves Him. Without these things, we should not expect God to hear our prayers. We should not expect Him to pay any real attention to us.

Even though it appears that we are heading into uncharted waters economically and financially, God says He will not abandon His own. In fact, there are many places throughout the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures where we learn God provided for the “righteous” within Israel even when He was bringing judgment onto that nation.

Isaiah 3:10-11 makes this fact very clear.

10 Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them,
For they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
11 Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him,
For the reward of his hands shall be given him.

In the above passage of Isaiah, ultimately, God is speaking of the end result of a person’s life here. In the end, the righteous will go onto the eternal reward that allows them to live with God, to experience His love and graciousness throughout eternity future. It will be well with the righteous.

The wicked, on the other hand, will forfeit that because they consistently choose self and their evil desires over submitting to God. However, I also believe that these verses speak to the fact that even within the confines of judgment that God pours out on a nation in this life, the righteous within shall have times of blessing in spite of that judgment, much as Israel was not touched by many of the judgments that fell on Egypt prior to the Exodus.

One of the most difficult things I deal with is not necessarily other people or the unpleasant things that my come into my life. It’s my thinking about other people or the unpleasant things that come into my life. My thinking or thought patterns can be my worst enemy at times. Twenty plus years ago, I was depressed to the point of needing medication to help buoy me up and gain a better perspective. I wish I could say it wasn’t necessary, but it seemed to be at that point. I was also very overweight and what I did eat, often caused more harm than anything good. When a person takes medication to feel better, it is usually so because of a person’s thoughts that weigh the person down. It is one bad thought after another and creates a mindset that is self-defeating. It is hard to rise above that on your own.

I noticed that after a while, the medication was not really doing it’s job like I thought it should, but there is no magic pill. On one hand, it helped raise my spirits so that I felt better, while at the same time, helped me notice a bit of a dichotomy within me. While I felt better to a degree, I could still easily see the terrible thoughts that wanted me to wallow in self-despair.

After talking with a medical professional who knew of my genetic mutations (MTHFR), she pointed out that likely due to that, medications would not work for me and that other avenues would need to be tried; healthy eating, exercise, losing weight, avoiding certain foods, etc. So that was the method used and it made a huge difference. The MTHFR double mutation creates problems for me. I cannot take supplements with Folic Acid as my body cannot metabolize it, so I have to take Folate, which is already methylated. Beyond this, if I ever get cancer, because of the MTHFR double mutation, chemotherapy might not help much at all. So I’ve determined never to get cancer…HA!

Twenty plus years later, having been away from that type of medication, the Lord helped me realize something extremely important and it was very recently that I realized it. Anyone who goes through depressive episodes that can last for months or even a few years, develops a pattern of thinking. These patterns tend to become ingrained in the way that person thinks, not only of themselves, but of the world around them. Chances are good that those patterns developed over the years leading up to what we call depressive episodes.

I’ve always been a glass half empty kind of person. Always. It’s simply my nature and I realize it largely has to do with the impact my parents made on the way I saw the world and think in general. I’m not blaming them. I’m simply saying that whether or not they realized it, they tended to pass down to me (and my sister), the negativism that was rife in their own lives and between my mother and father. That negativism was alive and often fearful to me and so based on what I saw and experienced from a young age, my negative patterns of thinking developed. The adage, “you live what you learn” is very true.

I carried those thought patterns with me and they guided many aspects of my life as I grew into adulthood. I don’t see how a child can avoid mirroring at least some of their parents’ attributes; good and bad. We pass on what we are and what we’ve learned.

When pressure mounts in my life, I tend to recoil and want to run from it. I tend to view it as the enemy that I need to escape from and if I am successful, it will allow me to relax and carry on. That’s really wishful thinking though because the pattern of thinking is fully ingrained and not something that can be easily ignored.

So even though I’m way past experiencing depressive states, the same thought patterns I learned as a kid are still at work in my mind. Those thought patterns seek to overcome me and guide me into feelings of helplessness, despair and emotional instability.

The breakthrough for me came last Tuesday evening at our Bible study group. It suddenly dawned on me! Those thought patterns will always be there. I cannot change them. I cannot wiggle out from under them. What I can do is use His Word to break the hold those thought patterns have over me. But it requires me to actually do something to fight back as it were.

So how do I fight back? What can I do? What I’ve found helps immensely is repeating verses of Scripture. One of my favorites I’ve shared before is Isaiah 41:10 and when I remember, I repeat that to myself to speak to my own situation. That helps break that pattern of thinking. It interrupts it, allowing me to focus away from myself and onto God and His promises to me!

Another one – at the top of this article – from Psalm 145 is one that I’m currently memorizing. The point is that we can allow our thoughts or the enemy’s attack (often through our minds and thinking), to defeat us or we can fight back. We fight back not in our own strength, but by leaning heavily on Scripture because God’s Word is active, alive, and able to save us. That is our best weapon – the sword of the Lord – because by using it, we break the destructive pattern of our thinking and renew our minds!

If you’re not memorizing and repeating Scripture to yourself, you are not fighting “in the Spirit.” You may feel you’re resisting but you are actually resisting in your own strength, your own flesh. Repeating memorized Scripture speaks to our hearts, our minds and to the enemy of our soul. I cannot implore you enough to memorize aspects of His Word. His Word is what continually saves us from ourselves, from the world, from the flesh and from Satan! Please start today if you are not already doing so. Please.

On another note, we are getting ready to head out for a vacation. We would appreciate your prayers for our safety. I probably will not write much while we are gone and we’ll be gone over a week.

Thanks to everyone who reads and is encouraged by what I share. Think of the day when we will all meet in person with our Lord and Savior!

Entry filed under: christianity, Cultural Marxism, Demonic, Emotional virtue, Religious - Christian - Prophecy, salvation, Satanism.