Pure Thoughts, Anyone?

Has something ever consumed your mind and thoughts so much that it wakes you up in the middle of the night and you can't go back to sleep? This happened to me the other night. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love sleep, so it really annoys me when this happens.

I know in my heart that the thoughts I was having were not pure, holy, or any of those other Philippians 4:8 things. I was thinking about all the negative things that have happened over the last few months in my life. Don't get me wrong...a lot of wonderful things have happened in my life over the last 6 months, the best being the birth of our son. However, I was choosing to focus my thoughts and attention not on the blessings in my life but on the "bad" things that have happened.

When I got up the next day, I was really grumpy. Partly due to lack of sleep, but mostly because I allowed myself to focus so much time on things I KNEW I shouldn't be thinking about. Paul struggled with this...I'm not sure if he was speaking about his thought life, but it's applicable. I like how The Message translation puts it... Romans 7:17-20. Why is it that we, as followers of Christ (and I'm speaking mainly to myself), have such a hard time focusing our thoughts and attention on things that are beneficial to us?

I don't have the answer, but I do know that I have Christ in me and He alone can help me overcome the negativity in my thought life. A couple of years ago I was listening to a speaker at a conference speak on this very thing. She was speaking on real joy and what that means. One of my favorite things she said was that when negative thoughts enter our minds, we need to "Phillipians 4:8" them. She then whipped out an imaginary gun and told us to ask ourselves...

Is it true? (BANG!)
Is it noble? (POW!)
Is it right? (BOOM!)
pure, lovely, admirable, praiseworthy or excellent? (You get the picture.)

I know that because I am not perfect I will have to decide daily to put aside these negative thoughts and focus on things that are lovely, admirable, praiseworthy, etc. I am so thankful that I serve a perfect God who loves me inspite of my imperfections and wants to fill my mind with these things!