Words of Worth

UPDATE YOUR JOY SOFTWARE

February 10, 2012

If you’ve heard the rumor about me, it’s true.  I’ve crossed over to the world of e-readers!  And if you own an e-reader, you know how difficult it is to keep pace with the latest version of software.  At Christmas, when the battle of the Kindle Fire and the latest most improved Nook took place, Nook users could upgrade to a new version of software that would keep us current without having to upgrade to a brand new Nook.  Not a bad deal!

The upgrade could be done manually for those who enjoy immediate gratification or it would come in time as the great wizard of Nook would update over a period of a few weeks.  Of course, Cammy got her upgrade right away while I waited patiently for it to automatically appear, but alas, days grew into weeks –and nothing!  So I called wizard headquarters in the land of Nook Oz only to be told to wait just a little longer because “the mind of the software isn’t thinking right” and a few bugs needed to be worked out it so as to prevent a wonky reading experience.

That experience made me think about JOY, partly because not having the latest NOOK upgrade was less than joyful for me.  I didn’t want to have to wait patiently for the newest and best.  But my attitude reminded me that it was not just my e-reader software that needed an upgrade.  My “joy software” needed one too because my mind, like the mind of the NOOK software, wasn’t “thinking right”. Yet to experience all that true joy has to offer we must first improve the quality of our thinking.

In Philippians 4:8, Paul made it very clear as to what and how we are to work out the bugs in our thinking:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Someone once said, “Those who experience more joy don’t necessarily have more to be joyful about; they just think differently.”  Part of thinking differently involves thinking with a Philippians 4:8 mentality.  Every thought focus in this verse is positive:  true, honorable, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent, and worthy of praise.  So part of upgrading our joy software so that we “think right” is to focus on positive thoughts and rid our minds of the negative bugs.

As children of God we are called to be good stewards of our thought life and not to fill our minds with things that go against His law and desires “so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,…” (Phil 2:15).

Everything we choose to download or upload to our minds, what we read, watch, listen to and even who we choose to associate with, can either nudge us further away or bring us closer to joy. When we are upgraded closer to joy, we will shine like the stars in the universe to others who are “reading” our lives.  That’s much better than a NOOK upgrade any day!  (sv)