Notes of Faith November 1, 2026
I will continue to post the link to the “Go Fund Me” account for our friend, John Belle who lost his brother earlier this year and his mother last week, now alone, making $2,400 a month, and trying to continue to live in very expensive California. Thank you to those who have already helped and thank you to those who are going to. His current need is great, but God is helping us to help him make choices, that, although he will have to move to survive financially, he should be able to keep his job and have enough to make it from day to day. Again, I thank you and pray that your reward in heaven is multiplied greatly!
The First Three Thoughts
Before you even opened your eyes this morning, your brain had already started telling you a story.
Maria had been a Christian for fifteen years, but she couldn’t figure out why she felt defeated before her day even began.
Every morning, her first conscious thought was an agonizing inventory of everything that could go wrong: Will I be late? Did I forget something important? What if today’s the day I mess up at work? She’d pray. She’d read her Bible, eventually. But by the time she got to either one, her mind had already been running for twenty minutes on a track of low-grade dread, and she couldn’t understand why peace never seemed to catch up with her. Those early thoughts weren’t simply passing through her mind. They were setting the emotional direction of her morning.
It wasn’t until she learned to start paying attention to those first automatic thoughts that she realized what was happening. Her mornings were being hijacked by anxious patterns she’d been unconsciously rehearsing for years, patterns so familiar she’d stopped noticing they were even there.
I don’t know what your first thoughts were this morning. But I’d guess they weren’t neutral. No one’s are.
The Prayer That Starts with Honesty
So what do you do with thoughts you didn’t choose and can barely even see?
There’s a verse David prayed that’s always struck me as both brave and deeply exposing: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts” (Psalm 139:23).
David isn’t asking God to fix his behavior. He’s asking God to examine the thoughts he thinks when no one else is listening. These are the thoughts that run on autopilot before he’s even fully awake. And here’s what I love about this prayer: It isn’t the prayer of a guilty man (though he was a sinner) trying to earn forgiveness (which no one can do). It is the prayer of a loved man inviting the light in.
That distinction matters, because a lot of us avoid looking too closely at our own thought life. We’re afraid of what we’ll find. But David wasn’t asking God to search his heart so he could feel worse about himself. He was asking so he could be healed. When you invite God to examine thoughts He already knows about anyway, you’re finally surrendering something you’ve been carrying for far too long.
What would it look like to let God have access to the parts of your thought life you haven’t cleaned up yet, the automatic, unfiltered, half-asleep thoughts that run before your feet even hit the floor?
The reason that’s harder than it sounds is that most of your thought life happens somewhere you can’t even see.
Ninety-Five Percent of an Iceberg
Nobody steers an iceberg from the part above the water. (Well, nobody steers an iceberg at all but you know what I mean.) The visible tip isn’t what determines where the whole thing goes; the unseen mass underneath does. It turns out your thought life works the same way.
I’ve heard that researchers estimate the human brain generates somewhere north of 60,000 thoughts a day, and we’re only consciously aware of about 5 percent of them. If true, that means roughly 95% of your thinking happens below the surface, like a program quietly running in the background, shaping your mood and your reactions without ever asking your permission. Modern neuroscience is now describing what David was already praying about thousands of years ago: much of what shapes us is happening beneath the surface, and bringing it into the light is the beginning of change.
Those “hidden thoughts” aren’t a reason for despair. Discovering them is actually good news, because an invisible pattern can keep controlling you, but a pattern you recognize can begin to change. You can’t take captive a thought you’ve never noticed. Awareness has to come before transformation.
Paul tells us: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). “Captive” is the picture of a soldier apprehending an enemy combatant. You are actively seizing a thought and marching it, under authority, toward Christ.
But you cannot take a prisoner you never noticed was in the room.
Most of your thought life happens somewhere you can’t even see.
What Maria Did Differently
Remember Maria? Her turning point wasn’t dramatic. She didn’t overhaul her whole morning overnight. She simply started paying attention. When she woke up, before she did anything else, she’d lie there for a minute or two and notice: what are the first few thoughts running through my mind right now? Then she’d name the emotion attached to each one: anxious, hopeful, resentful, grateful. She’d just observe. No judgment. Just awareness.
What she found surprised her. Most of her first thoughts were future-focused worry or past-focused regret. Almost none of them were true, and almost none of them were things she’d have chosen if she’d been asked. She realized she’d been practicing anxiety every morning without ever intending to. But once she could see the pattern, she could finally do something about it.
Noticing wasn't the finish line — it was the starting point. Awareness tells you a thought is in the room; it doesn’t make it leave. So Maria took the next step: She began inviting God, specifically, into those first few minutes: a short, honest prayer that named what she noticed and asked God to help her think differently.
Over time, the anxious inventory started losing its grip. With God’s help, she’d finally taken those thoughts captive instead of letting them subtly run the show.
Adapted for Devotionals Daily by Kyle Idleman
It seems that many of us have to learn by experience rather than learning from the experience of others who tell us about their experience. Even reading a book or seeing a movie about those who are experiencing something very similar to our life’s journey does not seem to have the same effect as our own journey. So…
lets try to begin the day in more control. As soon as we become aware and somewhat awake, talk to God. Allow the Holy Spirit to prepare you for the day ahead. Go to the bathroom (well, that is usually my first stop), with an attitude of: “What do you have planned for me to do for you today, Lord?” Together we can do anything! Amen!
I look forward to the first thoughts of the day, now more than ever!
For my friend David…Wow, God!
Pastor Dale