Have you ever wondered where those inner nudges come from? Why a memory interrupts you like one of those annoying pop-ups on websites?
Unplanned, you think of someone and decide to text, or phone?
You've had enough of other folk and need a wee while on your own.
What triggers an impulse buy in the shops?
Why did you say something that as soon as it was out, you wished you could press delete, or at least edit before clicking send?
Why do we do what we do?
Oh, I know, there's a real danger of overthinking everyday experiences as if we could explain the machinations, complexities, unpredictabilities and inconsistencies of a human mind relating to the world, itself, other people, and God. Yes, God. And not just the mind as intellect and cognitive awareness; but our moods and emotions, memories and wounds, longings and disappointments, all swirling around every day in the realities of our everyday.
The above cartoon is a helpful corrective to that process of overthinking. But in the life of faith there are also dangers of underthinking; living without reflection so that we never come to know ourselves better. Or underusing the human capacity for curiosity and the adventures hidden inside the questions how and why. Or looking on a broken world with disinterest because the worst cracks don't affect us, and we can find easier things to think about.
Somewhere between overthinking and underthinking is responsible and responsive thinking. As a Christian who tries to be a thinking Christian I've always taken seriously the discipleship of the intellect, the Christian mind, or as Anselm called it "faith seeking understanding." It's true you can overthink some of the sayings of Jesus. Those words about turning the other cheek, or walking the extra mile, or forgiving 70x7 as a disqualification of all calculations about when forgiveness runs out of patience?
Ever since they were spoken people have either tried to explain them away, dilute the demand, reduce the ideal to what is thought to be feasible, practical, humanly possible. Or, on the other hand, there are those who take the words literally, and seek to live out the radical demands of Jesus in whatever contemporary context they inhabit.
I use the word inhabit deliberately. Christian faithfulness is the result of cumulative choices, some of them anguished and even conflicted. But gradually, choices become consistent, behaviour begins to reflect character, and character reveals the characteristics of the follower of Jesus. We inhabit the values and principles of the Kingdom of God. When that happens much of the thinking is done, and the decisions we make as Christians become habit. That's not to say following Jesus becomes merely a habit; it is to say that as those called to participate in the life of Christ, through the transforming grace of Christ crucified and risen, enabled by the energising of love of God, we are drawn into the communion of the Holy Spirit and into participation in the mission of the Triune God of love.
So neither overthinking or underthinking, we are called to know and live in the mind of Christ, to offer ourselves as living sacrifices which is our reasonable worship, to love God with all our heart, and soul and body, and yes, our minds. An old hymn retains the hold it first exerted on me as a raw convert and a teenager with a heart intensely engaged and a mind both curious and hungry for understanding of what following Jesus involved:
May the mind of Christ, my Savior,
live in me from day to day,
by His love and pow'r controlling
all I do and say.
May the word of God dwell richly
in my heart from hour to hour,
so that all may see I triumph
only through His pow'r.
May the peace of God my Father
rule my life in everything,
that I may be calm to comfort
sick and sorrowing.
May the love of Jesus fill me
as the waters fill the sea;
Him exalting, self abasing:
this is victory.
May I run the race before me,
strong and brave to face the foe,
looking only unto Jesus
as I onward go.
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