New Habits in My Mind.....

....inspired by "Habits of the Mind" by James Sire

At Semester, we talked a lot about being an intellectual and what an intellectual looks like. During our family meetings we discussed a book called Habits of the Mind; however we never were able to finish it. So when I got home, I finished it, and loved it so much that I thought I would blog a little bit about what I grasped from it and how I’m practically applying it to my life. And why not start off with intellectualism?

What exactly is an intellectual? A dictionary definition says this: possessing a highly developed intellect. A Christian intellectual possesses a highly developed intellect but it is used for the glory of God. A Christian intellectual pursues two things: holiness and truth. To be holy one must set themself apart to serve God alone and to form their character to be like Christ’s. Pursuing truth encompasses knowing the truth and obeying it. The author of this book brought up a point that I had never considered before. To know the truth, one must obey the truth. To believe the truth, one must act on it. However, even as Christians, how many of us really obey and act on truths we believe in the Bible? How much fuller would our lives be if we obeyed the truth that Christ presented? I find this very convicting in my life. There are many things that I “believe” in, however, I don’t obey them. Does this really mean then, that I don’t believe in them? For example, I believe that God is trustworthy; however, many times I don’t find myself trusting in him especially in not knowing what the future holds for me. So it follows that I really don’t believe that God is trustworthy. And this is a major dilemma in my mind. I want to trust God, but I do not. My weakness saddens me, yet I know that God is merciful and will have compassion on me as I slowly learn to trust him wholeheartedly.

Being an intellectual does not mean that the main focus is the mind. The mental life is directly related with the physical life, or in other words, the thoughts with character. What one thinks about, what one spends its time studying and reading in turn affects the way one acts. What one thinks about is what they do, or at least should do. I know I am not yet an intellectual, but I long to be one. I do not love ideas as I should. I do not play with them, laugh at them, turn them upside down, or judge them as I should. I give up too easily. I don’t find the answers I need. I give up to easily. However, I can see a great difference in the way I thought and acted on my thoughts from before I went to Semester compared to life at home again. And I will press on towards being a Christian intellectual, glorifying God in all that I think about, read, study, and talk about.