Mind-Food Diet for the New Year

“scary book” Copyright by Bizior – www.sxc.hu

It is dieting time!!  I plan on cutting back  after eating so much food over the holidays.  Many others will start dieting in January.  Sadly, far too few consider what they put into their mind like they do their body.   Christians are to manage our mind-food more carefully than our physical food (Phil. 4:8, Rom. 8:5-8).

Behaviors happen because we think first.  You think;  you act;  and your actions become habits.  We are  to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4).  We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2).  We are what we think!   The battle for our soul takes place in our minds!

Many have been successful at loosing weight through simply tracking their calories and fat in-take.  Let me encourage you to really consider what you put into your mind.  Keep a pen-and-tablet with you or use a note-taking App on your phone to record your mind-food for a week.  It might surprise you what are your feeding your mind and the percentage of time dedicated to certain areas.

I think we need to consider three broad categories of mind-food,  rather than two as we might typically think.  Because this is not just as simple as negative-versus-positive or sinful-versus-spiritual.  When it comes to the content that I try to put into my mind and allow in the minds of my kids, these three designations have helped.  The first category of “garbage” is one that I don’t want to put into my mind and I want to keep it from my children’s minds.  I will be exposed to some, but I don’t want this to be an intentional part of my diet and I must work to keep it out of my mind-diet.  The second category is the one that I believe is often difficult to navigate.  The key in this category is finding the balance.  It seems that a temptation that many Christians fall into is living in this category and feeling content because they are not in the “garbage” category, but they are not putting enough of the spiritual content into their minds.

Look over the chart below and consider the mind-food you are eating daily, in which category does it mostly fit?  Thought question for you:  How much percentage of mind-food should come from the spiritual area?  {I am not sure there is a standard answer here, but I know that as I have matured in Christ I have put more previously comfortably viewed content into the “garbage” category.  I also now feel more of an obligation to spend less time in the middle area and more in the spiritual.}

What are your thoughts?  How do you choose what you put into your mind and the percentage of time allocated to the above categories?