The first and final criteria for curating our thoughts is, Does this thought help me enjoy God more in the ways he intends? Does this line of thinking incline me toward him or cause me to forget him? Does it open my eyes to his goodness, truth, and beauty, or does it dull my spiritual senses? Does it help me pursue full and lasting joy in Jesus?

Do you think about your thoughts? Not in some meta or psychological way, but do you ever consider the kinds of things you allow your mind to dwell on? According to Scripture, thinking about your thinking is not only a fruitful discipline but a necessary one. The Bible repeatedly draws our attention to our habits of attention.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. (2 Timothy 2:7)

[Jesus] turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:23)

We could go on. And time would fail us to list all the times Scripture calls us to “remember” (the word occurs in the ESV well over two hundred times), or to “consider” (one mantra of the book of Hebrews), or to “understand” (a favorite imperative of Proverbs).

God considers the patterns of our thought crucial to the pursuit of happiness and holiness. So, I ask again, How often do you think about the kinds of things you think about?

Your Mental Media Feed

Imagine for a moment your mind as a social media feed. (It’s not! This is just a metaphor.) Every day, you scroll through thousands of thoughts, everything from what to eat for breakfast to a lovely flower in the yard to the bill you need to pay to a Jane Austen novel to the glorious mystery of the Trinity. Clearly, the range of topics and their relative worth varies greatly.

Just like a digital feed on YouTube or Instagram, whenever you click on one of these thoughts and dwell there, your feed changes. With each selection, the algorithm of your mind adjusts slightly. Tomorrow, you will have more thoughts like the ones you chose and approved of today.

To change the metaphor, you write “on the tablet of your heart” through your patterns of attention (Proverbs 3:3, 7:3). The more you return to a line of thought, the deeper the inscription goes. Over time, the scribbles on your mind become well-worn carvings. They harden into habits.

In his book The Logic of the Body, Matthew LaPine describes how the pathways of our thoughts and passions can be shaped and retain that shape over time. The technical term for this is plasticity, “the capacity to take a shape (malleability) and hold that shape (durability). It is the capacity that enables habit formation” (38). Over months and years, weightlifting will shape and strengthen your muscles. In the same way, our minds, wills, and appetites have “the ability to be molded into semi-permanent shapes” through our habits (40). Just like your body and your social media feed, your thought patterns are plastic.

In short, our thoughts shape our thinking. What we think about (present tense) has a significant influence on what we will think about (future tense). And our thinking shapes who we are. What we attend to cannot be severed from what we are becoming (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Curate Your Thoughts

Jesus illustrates this principle in Matthew 6. He warns us not to fall into the mental rut of anxiety, fretful about our daily needs. However, he does not expect us to banish worry by mere willpower. He beckons our attention to the birds. He calls us to linger over the lilies. He invites us into a new pattern of thinking centered on God’s fatherly and kingly care. LaPine explains,

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