I’m going to embark upon a particular path in the next several Lessons From the Garden, sharing something that frequently surfaces in my thoughts, especially the past several months. If I were to do a document search on my computer using the phrase “living logically,” several documents in many different folders would surface with that title at or somewhere near the top. It references an article from World Magazine writer Andree Seu Peterson, titled Living Logically, A New Years Resolution. I believe it was first printed December 30, 2000. I have hard copies of it stuffed away in various notebooks, binders, and book jackets. I’ve used it in devotional studies, counseling and mentoring sessions, having no idea how many I’ve handed out or sent to people. As a personal practice, I read it at least once a year on New Year’s Day. I eventually posted it to my website on February 21, 2020: https://captivethoughts.net/living-logically/
What is “Living Logically?”
By definition, living logically means talking to yourself instead of listening to yourself. And when you’re talking, talking Scripture!
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance. Psalm 42:5
Do you ever talk to yourself? What response do you hear? Is it your own reasoning from experience, what others have told you to think, or thoughts learned from life’s influences? Living Logically really means living or thinking Biblically – thinking God thoughts after him. It means “bringing every thought captive to Christ” (2Cor. 10:5).
I’m posting it in part here for your morning meditation. As is my habit, it won’t be in its entirety, this is just part one, intending part two for next time. As a side note, this piece has become singularly significant for me of late, at this particular moment in my personal life journey. I may comment on that later; but for now please prayerfully consider what it means to truly Live Logical in our quest for Christ (Phil 3:12-14).
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa 30:15; Job 2:10; Jas. 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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Living Logically (Part 1)
A New Year’s Resolution | by Andree Seu
In the 21st century I propose to live more logically. I didn’t do so well in the last one, though I had almost half of it to practice; and looking back I can’t think of a single instance where it worked out better for me in the long run when I did things my way instead of His. Will any man, at the end of his life, say, “Darn it. I wish I had followed my desires instead of God’s word that one time back in 1966”?
And so we find, even empirically, those of us who are God’s mules and must be controlled by bit and bridle, that sin is ultimately always destructive, always doomed, always … illogical.
Living logically means talking to yourself instead of listening to yourself. And when you’re talking, talking Scripture. Jesus lived logically when in the wilderness he beat back each temptation with a quote from Deuteronomy.
Are you mourning? Never mind, life is short. Are you lonely, are you poor? Never mind, our lives are a breath. Are you happy about that big promotion? Keep it in perspective. “This world in its present form is passing away” (midrash on 1 Corinthians 7:29-31).
Logic is what Sue L. spoke when I asked how she keeps her equanimity while raising seven kids and volunteering in the pro-life movement: “I just do the next thing that needs to be done.” Wow, I thought, as I mulled it over for the next 15 years: the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man all wrapped up and tied in a bow.
Logic is not what I saw at a Thanksgiving pageant at the local elementary school last year: cute, well-scrubbed tykes performing songs of thanksgiving for sun and sky and seasons—with no one in particular to thank! Just imagine what a number that does on malleable minds just forming “logic.”
I have a running argument with a friend about the bumper-sticker, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins.” She insists it’s serious, but I say it can only be ironic, even evangelical. (Nobody’s that illogical, right?)
Logic: What do you do if someone slanders you, or otherwise abuses you? See how King David waxed philosophical (logical) when Abishai asked to sever the head of the seditious Shimei the Benjaminite (2 Samuel 16:10-12). It was a page from the playbook of the Greater David: “When they hurled insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).
Or let’s say you’ve totally blown it, half a century used up and nothing to show for it but wood, hay, and stubble. I’m no Einstein, but it seems to me you have two logical choices here: Judas’s or Peter’s.
Which reminds me that related to logical living is logical praying: I like the way Daniel does this in chapter 9: “You have told us that you’re merciful, Lord! You said it yourself! Therefore, Lord, I come to you for mercy!”
….to be continued
