HEAR NO EVIL | SEE NO EVIL | SPEAK NO EVIL

Hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil – because that is the progression of experience.

I can tell what your tomorrow will look like by the way you speak.  I can also tell what you thought about yesterday by what you are saying today.

Margaret Thatcher made this challenging statement,

“Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions.  Watch your actions for they become habits.  Watch your habits for they become your character.  And watch your character for it becomes your destiny.  What we think, we become.”

We cultivate the landscape of tomorrow by what we think, imagine and speak.  The challenge then is will we choose to do that intentionally?

Do you know that we hear our thoughts?  The playlist, the sound track of our lives is made up of the thoughts we hear - What we say to ourselves - What we mediate on and consider - What we allow ourselves to think about.

As Maggie Thatcher so eloquently prescribed, ultimately our thoughts shape our destiny.  That is big and it’s broad and it has far reaching implications in our lives.

CHANGE YOUR MIND AND YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

The Apostle Paul wrote to a group of miss-guided, worldly and very confused new Christians about this very thing.  They had come out of lifestyles so destructive and beliefs so skewed that Paul simply had to get back the basics of their internal programming to empower them into health.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 KJV)

Our thinking is where our living begins.  We need healthy minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day thinking.  We can’t hope to make big decisions well, if we choose weak thinking in our daily lives.  So where there is ‘unhealth’ in our thoughts we have to take them captive and be renewed in the “Spirit of the mind” (Eph 4:23)

Consider your heart as a landscape – particularly a forest.  All those massive strong trees started out as tiny seeds.  The seeds sprouted weak little roots to start with, but grew and became stronger.  Then the seeds broke the Earth and became a small shoots.  Eventually, permitted by sun and rain and good soil, the shoots became heavy established trees – a forest.

We need to take captive fleeting thoughts just like a gardener wants to catch those bad seeds before they bury them selves in the soil and take root.  It is easier to capture a thought (we HEAR) before it becomes an imagination (we SEE).  If that imagination that we have seen is not cast down, it can become a fully formed stronghold that we feel and actually experience in our hearts.

Once it is a stronghold in my heart it creates my world.  I live out of my heart.  My issues are stored in my heart.  I SPEAK out of my heart. (Matt 12:34)

So I get this picture of our hearts as a landscape that we have to tend and keep diligently.  Those tiny seedlings seem insignificant right now, but they could be the kind of species that want to overrun our gardens and crowd out any other healthy thing growing there.  We also need to be ruthless with the mature beasts of trees that simply need to come out.  Call in the lumberjacks and hack those suckers down – TODAY! 

Anxiousness is a big one! 
Do you mediate on stress and hardship?  Are you preoccupied with the worst-case scenario and forever impatiently waiting for it to manifest in your life?  Cut it down.  Root it out.  Get that thing out of your life, and then watch for little seeds of anxiousness that may appear again tomorrow.

Are you a controller? 
You don’t trust God to come through for you.  You don’t trust people.  After all, if you ever want a job done right you’ve got to do it yourself.  Right? Wrong!  Bad news for you my friend, that lie has got to go!  It’s keeping you out of peace and probably out of authentic community with others.

How about doubt? 
Remember that time God didn’t answer your prayers?  Remember the seeds of confusion that were trust far and wide across the landscape of your heart?  Now you second-guess yourself all the time.  You question faith and you are sceptical of any idealistic person with a positive outlook.  That doubt has to be ruthlessly cast down.  It’s robbing you.  It can’t stay.

Are you ruled by the rejection sown into you by another person? 
Maybe they neglected you, spoke negativity over you or abandoned you.  As a result you’ve spent years looking for love in all the wrong places, desperately seeking acceptance from people.  Can you see today that those seeds have sprouted and grown and overrun the health of your heart?  Cast down the strong tree of rejection.  

Are you short-tempered? 
You have a sickening feeling that people are walking on eggshells around you.  You’re never satisfied, content or at peace.  You’re easily disappointed and you’re easily angered.  That tree of anger is towering over you and everyone around you.  It needs to go.

There are so many trees that we need to be vigilant against cultivating in our hearts: guilt, shame, fear, performance, inferiority, gratification, self-righteousness and so many others that are contrary to the Word of God and the potential health of our lives.

God is ultimately good with life-giving promises for us to experience personally and to bless the world with.  I am convinced that He does not intend our hearts to be barren wastelands.   We are responsible not only for uprooting the bad but also for sowing into and cultivating the God-designed landscapes of our tomorrows.

How? Good question!

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.  Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. (Philippians 4:6-8)

We decide what sort of trees will flourish in the landscape of our hearts by intentionally deciding, what will be the first thought in the morning.  What will be the last thought at night?  Through which filter will we view the events of our days?  

We do it by keeping our eyes set on the prize, and that is Jesus.  Beautiful Jesus.  He is everything.  He is more than enough.  Who He is and what He has done far outweighs any lie, memory, or stronghold trying to dominate our lives. 

The Word of God is full of promises and truths that counteract the negative lies that might bombard our minds…  And that is what they are - lies, whispers of lies - from the enemy of our souls.  There is room enough for only one voice in our hearts and minds.  But we chose which thought to meditate on, which will take root and grow? Will it be the false truth whispered through your past experience or fear? Or will it be the truth of God’s Word and promise?  Choose and believe.

Choose from today onwards to HEAR NO EVIL in your thoughts, to SEE NO EVIL in your imagination, and next week we’ll explore the big one – SPEAK NO EVIL.