Your Daily Slice

Elul 4

Thoughts

“You understand my thought from afar.” (Ps 139:2 ISR)

An uncontrolled thought life will get us in trouble.  Wisdom warns us in the book of Proverbs that ‘as a man thinks within himself, so is he’ (Pro 23:7), and Rav Sha’ul (Apostle Paul) admonishes us to ‘take captive every thought to make it obedient to the Messiah’ (2Cor 10:5).  We are even given a list of things we should be entertaining in our thought life (Phi 4:8), yet how many of us really have the control over our thoughts that we should have?

Not too terribly long ago, I was standing in line at a WalMart store, waiting to check out my purchases.  There was a hold-up in the line while a WIC recipient argued with the cashier about purchases she was trying to justify with her WIC card (WIC is a program through the Department of Agriculture, providing supplemental nutrition for women, infants and children.)  My thoughts concerning this woman were not kind.  In fact, they were very ugly.  Almost immediately, I sensed my Abba telling me, “I heard that.”  Talk about conviction!  Yet how many times throughout any given day do we think thoughts of irritation and resentment about one that is created in the image of Elohim?  And our Father hears every one of them!

The Hebrew word that is used in our opening verse and translated as ‘thought’ is the word rêa‛ (Strong’s H7454), and Ps 139 is the only place in the Scriptures that this word is found.  While the definition of the word is correctly translated as ‘thought’, there is an added connection of grazing, as in a pasture, or feeding.  When we combine this added suggestion, the question should be asked as to what are we feeding our thought life on?

When we sit, gazing off into nothing, where are our thoughts wandering to?  Is our mind playing leap-frog, jumping from one lily pad to another, as we think on first this, then that, before moving on to this other?  May we never forget that our Elohim not only hears our thoughts, but He accurately discerns and understands them – even “from afar”.

“For the Word of Elohim is living, and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting through even to the dividing of being and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Heb 4:12 ISR)

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