Aging Gracefully Challenge - Day 8 - Our Mental Diet!

As we age, we know how important it is to have a good mind. We want a brain that functions well and a brain that thinks good thoughts. So for the next few days, we are going look at a “Mental Diet”  - both the thoughts we think and the foods we eat and how they impact the brain.

OUR MENTAL DIET

Today we are going to look at the thoughts we think. If you can stay on this diet, I can pretty much guarantee that at the end of it you will be happier, healthier, be closer to God and act like more Jesus. But before I begin, let me tell you, this will be the most difficult diet you have ever attempted. It would be easier to not eat any food for seven days. Are you ready?

 A few years ago, I came across an article written quite some time ago that discussed a “7 Day Mental Diet”. Let me give you a few excerpts.

The most important of all factors in your life is the mental diet on which you live. It is the food which you furnish to your mind that determines the whole character of your life. It is the thoughts you allow yourself to think, the subjects that you allow your mind to dwell upon, which make you what you are. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Prov. 23:7
Please be very clear about this. If you change your mind your attitudes and actions must change too. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Rom 2:2 So now you will see that your mental diet is really the most important thing in your whole life.
The truth is seen to be perfectly obvious when it is clearly stated in this way. In fact, I do not know of any thoughtful person who denies its essential truth. The practical difficulty in applying it, however, arises from the fact that our thoughts are so close to us that it is difficult, without a little practice, to stand back as it were and look at them objectively.
Yet that is just what you must learn to do. You must train yourself to choose the subject of your thinking at any given time.
In short, you must begin immediately to train yourself in the habit of thought selection and thought control. This will be exceedingly difficult for the first few days, but if you persevere you will find that it will become rapidly easier, and it is actually the most interesting experiment that you could possibly make.
Make up your mind to devote one week solely to the task of building a new habit of thought.

Day 8 Challenge – No Negative Thoughts – This then is your challenge, and it is one of the most difficult. For the next seven days you must not allow yourself to dwell for a single moment on any kind of negative thought. You must not allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind, full of love and full of faith.  

Replace any thought of fear, failure, disappointment, or trouble; any thought of criticism, or spite, or jealousy, or condemnation of others, or self-condemnation; any thought of sickness or accident; or, in short, any kind of limitation or pessimistic thinking. Turn away from cable news, the newspaper and Twitter; turn out the thought of the unkind letter, or stupid remark, or what not.

When the negative thought floats into your mind, immediately turn it out and think of something else. Best of all, think of God. May my meditation be sweet to Him; I will be glad in the Lord. Ps 104:32

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