Protect Your Mind
To protect your mind, there are things you should do. Before I get ahead of myself, let me share an experience. Not too long ago, I volunteered to lead a high school small group at my church. Let me just say I wasn’t too sure about it, but these kids have proven to be hilarious and fun. And they seem to like me, so that’s a bonus.
The other week, I asked them what their most valuable possession is. Although slightly cringy and disappointing, and this may not come as a surprise to you, most of them said it was their phone.
The Trap is Set
Brilliant! They walked right into my trap.
Next, I asked them what they do to protect their phone. One of the girls, a good friend of my daughter’s, chuckled sheepishly because I had applied a screen protector to her phone earlier that afternoon as she recently broke her last one. They said they use cases and screen protectors. One even mentioned keeping the software updated to protect from viruses. They said they keep it from water and other hazards.
Once they were thoroughly pleased with their report of caring for their phones, I burst their bubble and told them that their most valuable possession was something they couldn’t replace and would have to last them all their lives. I told them it was their mind.
Protect Your Mind is Your Most Valuable Possession
1 Peter 1:13 (CEB) tells us, “Therefore, once you have your minds ready for action and you are thinking clearly, place your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
We read in Romans 12:2 (CEB), “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is – what is good and pleasing and mature.”
See, we need our minds to help us discover and figure out what God’s will is for our lives. God didn’t give us minds only to have us not use them. Now that we know what an integral part our brains play in God’s will for our lives, we should be that much more intentional with protecting them.
Protect Your Brain’s Physical Health
We can protect our brains physically by taking necessary precautions and wearing helmets during activities that require them. Additionally, we ought to be mindful of foods and lifestyle habits that improve or degrade the physical health of our brain.
But what about the health of the content of our minds?
Protect Your Mind’s Emotional and Spiritual Health
“From now on, brothers and sisters, if anything is excellent and if anything is admirable, focus your thoughts on these things: all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8 CEB).
When I was a kid, I had a VHS tape of Colby’s Clubhouse, and keeping in mind this was over thirty years ago, please understand I am loosely paraphrasing one of the songs on the show. Colby was a computer, and he sang to the kids something along the lines of:
“Input, output, that is what it’s all about…input, output, your mind is a computer whose data you must choose.”
The moral of the story is to be mindful of the things that you let enter your mind, as those are the things that will come out of your mouth.
Not only do we need to be mindful of physically protecting our brains, but we should also take care to protect them from intellectual material that could be potentially detrimental—things like violent, gory, or horror shows, pornography, explicit music, etc. When we take in a steady diet of these things, we start to get a taste for them, and worse yet, we become desensitized to the morality (or lack thereof) in them. These tastes then easily pervade into our real lives.
Input = Output
I don’t know about you, but I never want to be so desensitized to those things that I no longer bat an eyelash at them. Those types of things should make our stomachs turn. They should make us feel dirty watching them. They should make us feel like we need a good soul scrubbing afterward.
Keep your mind pure, fresh, and sharp, friends. You’ve only got the one.
About the Author
Melanie Lemus is the Communication Specialist and resident editor for author Dr. Jeannine Bennett. She lives in Virginia with her wonderful husband and witty daughter. Melanie loves her freedom – in Christ and America. She’s passionate about natural health and homeopathy, and she’s always down to take a hike through the mountains.
