Philippians 4:8-9 says, ‘Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise… Then the God of peace will be with you (NLT)’ Paul tells us to keep our mind on the good things and not on the bad because they’ll keep us pressing forward.
Which seems just nuts. Because things can get pretty unexcellent and unworthy of praise, in a way that fogs up your vision. Not even talking international disasters - even that essay that keeps you up to 2am can drag your mind into a despair rut. Now, it’s right to be upset about some things, and to give them real thought (Isaiah 1 tells us to seek justice and correct oppression, and that means thinking seriously about the wrong in the world). But today’s verse is telling us about the thoughts that define us, that keep us going. Those need to be something else: God’s new peace and His delight in you. Those are also, pretty much, the difference between ‘happiness’ and ‘joy’. Joy is a deeper, firmer thing. It doesn’t shake when our world does, because it comes from Him who is beyond it. The God who stands beyond our shaken experience is not only true, honourable, right, pure, and lovely: He *sings* over you, rejoicing. Yeah, stuff can get hard. But nothing - nothing - can take that rejoicing away from you.

What now?
If you’ve got a laptop, change the screensaver to Zephaniah 3:17. Get yourself a mental screensaver that does the same job for your down-time thoughts (those lying in bed, on the bus times).