thinking on loveliness was much needed and my constant prayer when it seemed all i could think on was anything but.
when i read philippians 4 back in, oh i guess it was 2010(?), oh gosh or maybe 2011. yes, 2011 sounds correct, i realized this is what i needed. i needed a mind and a life that was centered on these words:
"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. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you."
it's a nice thought. to consider amidst a world full of tragedy, disappointment, and despair...believing that one could find the space, the grace, and the desire to think on loveliness offered hope for an alternative.
and then notice result of such meditation: the God of peace will be with you.
what a lofty promise!
when things get cold and still, sometimes it feels like groping in the dark, which equates to an aimless sort of searching, just to latch onto some different sort of thinking. sometimes the idea of lovely, noble, just, and pure feels so elusive.
even when His word is open and my eyes are searching, and my heart is aching for it...the heaviness, the weighty memory of that which is not, presses in and works its way into every crevice to blind and to bind up my heart and mind with its dark hopelessness.
this sort of existence is wholly unlovely, and yet it is a place that it seems that i (we) can easily find ourselves. i know i am not alone in this because i hear it in their voices. i see it in their actions. we are living and breathing in the not quite lovely things on the regular. and it is wearing us down, and i believe it influences us in ways we don't always realize. but we begin to speak it and then to live it as it reflects in our choices and attitudes.
but as i reexamined those words in the present, i realized what i hadn't before.
paul wrote these words in a place of dark hopelessness. though the occasion was not. of his many letters to churches and brethren, philippians was a bright light amidst the not so bright. in a dark place, paul saw a light, and grasped for it.
it is clear, from these words he wrote, these words God spoke, that he believed it...and he lived it!
and i believe that it was because he wholeheartedly meditated on true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and virtuous things. these characteristics that so wonderfully inspire and encourage hope, faith, and love. these ideas that complement the association of receiving the peace of God. God's peace will surely be with you when you meditate on these things.
true is ethical trueness.
noble is to be respected.
just is giving people what they deserve.
pure is holy in relation to God.
lovely is attractive.
of good report is praiseworthy, thereby, something that brings God praise.
virtue refers to moral excellence.
think on these things...
fill your thoughts with these things, and then you can give thanks in all things.
when Paul exhorts us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 to give thanks in all things, he first tells us to rejoice and then to pray...i believe that order is salient because we need to prepare our hearts for giving thanks. we will not readily offer our gratitude to God, when things seem/feel contra.
that is why the meditation, the daily preparation, the consistency of prayer, and a constant intake of the word of God, and the fellowship of believers is so essential to our existence as followers of Christ.
in this world, getting "off track" is far too easy. so, in preparing for a holiday of giving thanks, and a week away from the daily grind, and a wild getaway, i pray to find that which is lovely again.
This journey leads me back to the word that started 2014 for me.
a prayer to pursue loveliness and gratitude "wholeheartedly."
