Two years ago, I participated in a four-month class called ‘Sound Mind Awareness’ hosted at our church. The course is based on 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
In this course, we learned what exactly a sound mind is; how it thinks, how it processes past, present, and future. Absolutely life-giving and revolutionary for me. The golden nugget I came away with:
A sound mind is believing truth regardless of circumstance or emotion.
Simple? Yes. Easy? Not really.
It is hard to believe God’s love when there is unprocessed shame in one’s past.
It is impossible to have a sound mind if I allow doubt and fear to grow in my mind. A sound mind believes the truth of God’s omniscience. The definition for omniscience is awesome: ‘having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness or understanding; perceiving all things.’
This is our heavenly Father!
A sound mind is a spirit at rest. There is no agitation in rest. Just a solid belief in truth. Truth of who God is, truth of who I am, and truth about my circumstances.
I learn that practicing a sound mind is literally ‘taking every thought captive’ and holding it against truth. Does it align with truth or not?
Paul states in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6a
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds! (this is the power of our thoughts!) We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge (truth) of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to disregard every disobedience… (every thought that goes against God’s truth)
A sound mind is quieted by His love. If I remain confident in my Father’s everlasting love, it brings a quiet strength. Following is a scripture that has brought such quiet to my spirit the past two days:
Fear not, O Zion! Let not your hands grow weak!
Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you by his love. He will exult over you with loud singing.
Love quiets.
A child secure in love is a happy, care-free child.
A sound mind is a mind secure in who the Father is.