The Power of Suggestion

Really, there is a point to this ramble if you care enough to follow through the first part. Okay. I’ve loved on and pampered a sick 5-year-old and let him watch Curious George all day while lying on the couch. And I’ve vacuumed and bleached and shampooed and Lysoled and vinegared (thanks, Rabbit!) and I think the house is as clean as I can get it. The best part is that M is feeling 100% better and managed to eat two small bowls of chicken noodle soup for lunch and has been quite spunky all afternoon. And he was able to eat dinner tonight, too. Hooray!! And, another blessing of this interrupted day is that I am much further along in getting the boys’ room under control. I stuffed all the books that I was trying to organize back in the bookshelf and dumped all the toys back in M’s foot locker so I could get to the floor and vacuum and shampoo it. Now all I have to do up there is take each area one at a time and organize (read that throw away junk they will never miss). Nice.

While doing all the expedited cleaning today (it all needed to be done, but I was going to do it after the organizing, but I’m really okay with my plans being superseded here) I got to thinking about the power of suggestion. When all the drama ensued last night, Hubby got up with me and took care of M and his horribly messed up bed situation while I got busy scrubbing the worst of the carpet mess. I had been feeling just fine until I heard that very tell-tale noise from M letting me know he was sick. That’s all it took for my tummy to start feeling overwhelmingly queasy, too. That’s how powerful ideas are.

What’s the point, you ask? Well, I started thinking about how easy it is to be swayed by ideas that sound good by themselves until you shine the light of scripture on them. There is a lot of extremely subtle error floating around the (so-called) Christian blogosphere and the Christian world in general. Some things are not so subtle, some are extremely subtle. I’m not getting into specifics here, just thinking a bit. I don’t want to address any specific heresy/error today. That’s not the purpose of this little writing. Part of the problem is that we are not always very good at defining terms. A lot of us use the same words, but mean very different things by them, and if we’re not careful to know what someone means by their terms, it can be easy to be sucked in or opened up to being deceived. I have learned that just because something suggests that it is Christian, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it truly is. We need to know and be convinced of and grounded in the fundamental essentials of the faith, so that when someone comes along preaching or suggesting error, we can know whether it lines up with God’s plumb line. This involves daily time in the Bible, knowing it and studying it. It involves exposing ourselves to solid, biblical, expository preaching. It can also involve reading solid, biblical books. The key, however, is that what we read and listen to must be grounded in the truth and authority of the Word. Anything else is just someone’s opinion. Because God is Who He is (holy, sovereign, the only true God, Creator, Redeemer), I want to follow and obey His opinion. That’s the only one that matters, bottom line. In the realm of theological and spiritual discussions I’m not all that interested in what some other human thinks if it’s just based on how they feel and not the settled Word of God. If I’m basing what I believe on my feelings or on someone’s opinion rather than on what God says in His Word, then I’m following an idol. It’s that important. We must know the Bible well enough and be praying often enough that we will have the discernment to know when a suggestion doesn’t sound right. Even if we don’t know immediately what is wrong with it, we must start digging and searching the scriptures to make sure we stay true to the plumb line. And, truly, it is only God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of a true believer that can lead him or her to right understanding and away from error. I am praying the Holy Spirit will grant me the discernment to recognize truth from error and to keep my own musings squarely in line with scripture as well. And I’m praying that He will guard my mind from following just any suggestion or opinion or method that comes down the road, but that I will test the spirits by His Word.

I hope this thought made sense. It has been a long day, and I am tired. But I’m thankful the Lord can turn my heart and mind to Him, even when doing the daily things around here.

Isaiah 42:8
"I am the LORD, that is My name;
And My glory I will not give to another,
Nor My praise to carved images."

Exodus 20: 2-3
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me."