Unshakable Kids: Three Keys to Raising Spiritually Strong and Emotionally Healthy ChildrenSample

Peace of Mind

I used to think if I thought positive thoughts for one day, I’d be emotionally healthy. But removing negative mindsets and replacing them with life-giving thoughts takes time, discipline, and perseverance. I like to think of the process like exfoliating our faces; instead of skin renewal, it’s mind renewal. The first step is always to wash clean and remove any dead skin by identifying dead thoughts and scrubbing them off. We start the removal process by learning to pay attention to our thoughts.

Then, after the skin is scrubbed and exposed, we add deep moisture by learning to fix our thoughts on heavenly things and letting go of everything else. If we want to experience the peace of God, we must align our hearts and minds with honorable, pure, excellent thoughts.

The other day I was driving when my son requested a specific song from his Sonic video game to listen to. As I started listening to some of the lyrics, I felt a stirring in my spirit. The words in this specific song didn’t bring life and light, so I told my kids we had to turn the song off. Immediately I heard grumbling and saw eye-rolling in the rearview mirror.

Car rides seem to be ripe for teaching moments in our family. I shared with my kids how the Bible instructs us to think of lovely, pure, and excellent things. I asked them if the lyrics from the Sonic song lined up with that Scripture.

They knew the answer was no, but in the rearview mirror I could see their minds working through it. At first, they hesitated to answer because they wanted to listen to the song. Their hearts experienced a clash between culture and kingdom.

Though my kids initially moaned, they learned a valuable lesson that day. We need to wisely choose what our eyes see, what our hearts hear, and what our minds meditate on. While Jesus stands at the gates of our minds, we have the power to tell Him to move.

We wonder why we don’t have peace, why we feel anxious, and why we can’t sleep well at night. But then we turn on the TV and watch depressing news or listen to music filled with heartache, negativity, and haughtiness. The Bible clearly tells us in Philippians that the meditations of our minds matter.

We need to ask ourselves: What are we allowing into our minds? Our spirits? What seeds are we sowing? What is germinating? What are we doing to protect our peace and our children’s peace of mind?