I had the privilege of being the high school chapel speaker a few days ago, and it was a chance to perform a revamped routine I first wrote in 1985. It is a routine built around a nine cigar box herring bone balance. It was a routine I performed a lot early on in my ministry, but had put on the shelf, using only a few times a year. While the trick is complex, I began to find the message simplistic. "Without Christ, things are hard; follow Christ, things get better." While there's a certain elemental truth to that, in the day to day walk of faith, it's so often the opposite. It is, after all, a narrow road we walk.

Then I had an intense moment of prayer and meditation, and realized I misunderstood the routine all these years. Strange, since I invented the routine, but I didn't know what it was about until that day. It's not a routine about building our lives on Christ (though a noble and important theme) but rather about the Holy Spirit being a filter of our thought life. Without seeing the routine, it's hard to explain the symbolism, so I hope any readers catch it live some time. 

And I was able to perform it live for our high school recently. And I was able to speak about taking thoughts 'captive' and replacing them with godly thoughts. Replace temptation with godliness; despair with hope; insecurity with faith. True, it is easier said than done, but it is doable, and it starts with thinking about our thinking. And trusting God to open our eyes when our thinking is spiraling in a wrong direction.