How often we see the state of someone else’s life – their home, their car, their kids’ behavior – and we become discontent with our own station. That discontentment has an allure to it – it’s easy to let it settle in and take root in our hearts. But our discontentment is not merely a longing for more – it’s actually a subtle charge against the manner in which God has chosen to provide for us. For that reason, we must also be on guard to take thoughts of discontent captive for Jesus.

Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night (Ps. 1:1-2).

There is a definite progression in these two verses. The man described here did not intend to keep company with the wrong crowd. At least not at first. At first, it was just a conversation that led to a decision. Just walking along. But then walking turned stationary and the man was a little further along. Until eventually he took up some kind of residence with evil. He walked, then he stood, then he just sat down. Deeper, deeper, deeper. Further, further, further.

Here is the creep of sin. Sin starts small, but it never stays that way. We walk with it, then stand with it, then sit down right in the middle of it. And the most frightening part is that we never really intended to. It just sort of happened. Like an untethered boat in the middle of a lake, we slowly drift into a place we never intended to be.

And that small beginning almost always begins with the mind. With the thoughtlife. With harboring and then dwelling on what begins as the hint of a suggestion until it grows and grows and grows. No wonder, then, that the Bible pays so much attention to our minds and thoughts, because that’s where it all starts.

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