Thursday Thoughts Newsletter is your weekly dose of 3 brief ideas from me, 2 quotes I’ve recently enjoyed from others, and 1 question for you as you go about your week.
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3 Brief Ideas
Idea #1: There are two main starting points for how we receive information, process it, and form conclusions: 1) Feel… then think; 2) Think… then feel. It is important to recognize these two starting points in our reasoning because they could not be more different, and they will typically lead to vastly different conclusions.
- When you start with “Feel… then think” you will become more biased in your receiving of information and forming conclusion because this approach starts with the premise of subject (how I feel) over object (the person, place, or thing in question). As a starting point, then, “Feel… then think” makes an individual more biased and less objective. Further reasoning, therefore, has less to do with understanding the object itself and more to do with how it fits the self. By putting the self first, it makes the information bow to it. It is an approach of pride.
- When you start with “Think… then feel,” however, you will become less biased in your receiving of information and forming conclusions because this approach starts with the premise of object (the data) over subject (how I feel). As a starting point, therefore, “Think… then feel” makes an individual more objective and less biased. Further reasoning in this respect, thereby, has more to do with understanding the object for itself and less to do with how it concerns the self. By putting the information first, it makes the self submit to it instead. It is an approach of humility.
Therefore, if we only feel our way through thinking instead of thinking our way through our thinking, then we will inevitably fall—the result of pride—into subjectivity and flawed bias.
Idea #2: Living for the approval and acceptance of others comes from a desire that can never be fulfilled by the approval and acceptance of others. We all have an innate desire to have a sense of personal security and significance that is unconditional, eternal, and maximally good. No person or group of people can ever provide this great need—precisely because they aren’t any of those things. Only God is. God’s acceptance and approval is what our souls desperately long for. Even though we aren’t worthy of God’s acceptance, the gospel is the good news that God can and does accept us—unconditionally, eternally, and maximally—through faith in Jesus Christ, the only one who was worthy of God’s acceptance and approval.
Idea #3: Embracing victimhood status as an ultimate way of living and thinking has one underlying—yet very alluring—factor: it makes us believe that we are alleviated from responsibility in other, unrelated areas of life. This is why victimhood status can strangely feel empowering. By seeing the self as ultimately helpless, we free ourselves from dealing with even the smallest burdens of inconvenience and even the most meaningful tasks of responsibility.
2 Quotes From Others
“Three things happen in a cultural shift: 1) What’s celebrated becomes condemned; 2) What’s condemned becomes celebrated; 3) Whoever doesn’t celebrate becomes condemned.” —Kyle Mercer
“Peacemakers are called the sons of God. Accusers have a different father.” —Rhyne Putman
1 Question For You
What areas of disappointment in your life have stemmed from rooting your personal sense of happiness in the erosive and infertile soil of others’ approval and acceptance? What kind of fruitlessness has come from sowing seeds to it? How would those same areas of disappointment be different if you rooted yourself in the rich, abiding soil of God’s love for you in Jesus Christ? Wouldn’t you find more freedom, less pressure, and greater joy?
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Thanks again for following along, see you again next week!
AG
