“We are what we think.” It is pretty much an accepted truth just as, “We are what we eat.” There is no logical way to deny the truth of such statements.
In regard to thought, then, the logical follow up question would obviously be, “Then, what am I?” Why is it that this question is so much easier to answer for at least some, anyway? Those who are accustomed to thinking critically — with honest, personal introspection — will find the question, “What am I?” stimulating, scintillating and sobering. They will be gripped by the challenge to courageously come to know the answer. The answer can then, in turn, lead to very positive change.
Critical thinking, however, is not the normal mental mode of our time. We have become as a culture, one that doesn’t ask the critical questions: “What are we? How did we get to the point of accepting the murder of the unborn? Why is there so much anger and hatred wherever we turn today? Why is there so much crime? Why can’t life be better?”
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). That which takes root in our minds will become the environment that we live in — it will become what we are. In today’s world at large, it is as if God’s admonition has fallen on deaf ears. And that is the real problem, is it not? God has been gradually removed from the collective thought process in our culture. Our living environment is collectively becoming that which is pondered on. We are living in an increasingly godless world.
The danger for you and me is in the company we chose to keep. In Proverbs 22:24-25, Solomon wrote, “Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.” The reason to avoid such people (in terms of close personal friendships) is revealed in chapter 29, where we see that unrighteously angry people stir up discord and violence. It emanates from them, and their unrighteous emotions are easily spread. Likewise, the furious man abounds in sin as a result of removing God from his thinking. His sin, too, is contagious to someone unaccustomed to critical thinking.
The thoughts we think are the seeds we sow. Of the non-critical thinkers, Hosea writes, “They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; It shall never produce meal. If it should produce, aliens would swallow it up” (Hosea 8:7). The lesson here is that the empty thinker sows empty thoughts but receives exponentially greater emptiness in life — the whirlwind.
The end we seek is different, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you” (Hosea 10:12). To come to this end, one must be a God-fearing critical thinker. The question we must ask ourselves is, “What am I?”
Marshall Stiver
