I Want to "Binge Read" a Book with a Boring Title

Sometimes - especially if I can't sleep - my thoughts swirl around my head like the New Mexico dust on a blustery Spring day.  Occasionally, I will get stuck in the "what if" cycle (like what if I died in a freak accident), and things progress downhill so rapidly that I almost feel as though I'm in the middle of a war with demons and angels and the only thing that will make my mind "reset" is to say the name "Jesus" over and over and over again until peace settles over my mind and body.  Once upon a time, I lived with a particular, regular fear and felt that the devil himself tried to torture me with  my own thoughts.  Then I remembered how it is both illustrated and stated in the Bible that even the demons shuddered at the name of Jesus.  Thus my habit was born.  It works very effectively by the way.  Even more effective, however, is learning not to let my mind "wander" in the first place.  After all, minds don't wander without permission.

I think we women - more emotional, less logical - struggle immensely with our thoughts.  I think this is partially how some depressions are born.  When I was on b.c. our first year of marriage, I believe it was part wacko synthetic hormones and part lack of controlling my thoughts that caused my mild, yet still terribly unpleasant stint of depression.  I hesitate to even call it a depression because of how unrelatable and unrecognizable it seems compared to more severe cases, but it sure was.  You know, in retrospect.  I was clueless at the time.


I attend a beautiful Bible study at a church that we don't attend.   It is my NM bff's church, and it is just down the road from my house, which means it's a super convenient locale for a morning study for those of us (ahem) that are cranky, chronically late non-morning people.  (Recently learned bonus of attending a study at a church you aren't a part of: people don't corner you and ask you to serve in yet another area of ministry before of after the study.  In fact, they're not even sure at first if you're a Christian or not, so you can be a fat consumer for once.  ;-)  I might get busted for saying that. Bad Amelia.)  Annnnnyway, we all love our Bible study so much, that we refuse to break for summer.  So instead of our normal study, we have chosen a book to read that will take us through some Biblical truths - sort of book club style - for our casual summer study.

Enter Loving God with All Your Mind by Elizabeth George.

When I first read the title, I inwardly cringed.  It sounded boring and dry.  What does it even mean to love God with all your mind?!   Like really mean in an applicable, daily life sort of way???  I imagined it would be a fluffy, feel good sort of read that might annoy me in the end.

Then I read the little blip on the back of the book.  It was probably similar to the product description:

"Elizabeth George’s Loving God with All Your Mind (more than 200,000 copies sold) has been revised and expanded. Elizabeth lets women know that loving the Lord involves action! Focusing on six main scripture passages, she helps readers understand what it means to truly—


let your mind think on what is true about God and about life
grasp and move toward God’s purpose for life
trust the Lord in all things

Drawing on biblical wisdom as well as personal experience, Elizabeth helps women handle their emotions and discover inner peace that comes from focusing on what is true. She shares six powerful Bible truths that will help readers draw closer to God and know His joy and love."  (Thanks, Amazon.com.)


In just reading everything I could get Amazon to relinquish for free with their little "look inside this book" feature, I am pretty hooked.  I'm thinking about buying it, whipping through it, and then reading it again with the other gals for the summer study. Hmm.

Check out this quote from the book that a reader included in her review:

"There is nothing--no circumstance, no trouble, no testing--that can ever touch me until, first of all it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come this far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret--for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is--That is the rest of victory."

One of the main themes of the book seems to be "think about whatever is true."

I've been thinking a lot lately about truth.  And likewise teaching Princess about what it means to tell the truth etc. (Reminds me of a quote from today that I don't want to forget: "Mom you're making me nervous. All those truths you are saying are making me nervous."  Well I had just told her this truth: if you don't eat your dinner, I will not give you any snacks and you will have to wait until breakfast in the morning."  I digress...) Our church (the one we do attend. ;-)) has been going through The Truth Project (by Focus on the Family).  It teaches a Biblical worldview in 12 different areas of life, is amazing, and I highly recommend it.  Even though we are almost done with that study, I can still recall something that hit me from Lesson 1.  This is not an exact quote: "Every sin that besets us can be traced back to the belief in a lie."

Sin deceives us.  Believing in lies can ruin our lives.

Then I started thinking that perhaps a lot of things that "beset us" can be traced back to the belief in a lie.  Some mental illnesses, physical conditions, etc.  We, as Christians and as a society, are so "intelligent and sophisticated" that we treat the symptoms of everything, rather than attacking a problem at it's root.  For example, patients request medication for you-name-it instead of changing their eating habits.  The lie:  my condition can only be treated with medication.  Or, medication is just as safe and effective as changing my diet, and it takes less effort on my part, so it is the best choice.  (Yes, I know, many conditions do require medication, but I would venture to say that most do not.)  Example two: Sally has a gossiping problem, so she's snagged a friend to help keep her accountable as she tries to learn to tame her tongue.  The lie: Sally's problem is that she does not control her mouth.   Truth: Sally needs to take her thoughts captive and not even dwell on the gossip to begin with.  If she's not thinking it, there's no chance she will say it.

With ALL of this rambling, the thing I really want to say is that I am jazzed to read to this book, and I want to know if anyone who reads my blog has read it?  If so, do tell.  Please.

I am excited to learn and grow.  Understanding what many people (women especially) struggle with regarding their thoughts and emotions, I believe that I have a decent grip on my thoughts (learned very slowly over years through circumstances that you don't want), but I'm sure that I'll be proven wrong quite soon.  Even just in reading the little excerpts of the text that I mentioned earlier, I am already realizing how my tendency to over-analyze everything and everyone (like trying to figure out her motive for saying such and such), can be a trouble spot in my thought life as I seek to "take every thought captive" and meditate a lot on Philippians 4:8:

"whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."