Deep thoughts anyone?

The youngest player to ever win the Grand Slam in tennis was Michael Chang - a Christian athlete who frequently gave all the praise for his ability and talent to the Lord.  One of the things he is quoted as saying kind of speaks to our passage today:  "Maybe sometimes I'm such a thinker, I reevaluate too much. Sometimes when it comes down to it, I really don't need to do anything. I don't really need to change anything.  I need to just keep plugging away, working at it."  We probably all have a tendency to "over-think" matters on occasion, making mountains out of molehills and tragedies out of small blips on the radar.  WE see things one way - GOD sees them quite differently.  Somewhere in-between what WE see and what GOD sees is where revelation begins to dawn.  Deep thought may be where we discover the deepest of truths, but as long as they remain "deep", we don't actually bring them forth into the place of discovery and usefulness in our lives.

Someone’s thoughts may be as deep as the ocean, but if you are smart, you will discover them. (Proverbs 20:5 CEV)

When asked about how he did so well in his career, rising to such a prestigious level in the tennis world so quickly and at such a young age, he shared that he had an ability to see the "tendencies" in another individual - he used those tendencies to judge how he would respond to them.  If I constantly have a tendency to go one way when having to choose a particular course of action, it is pretty realistic you can come to expect that of me time and time again.  This may not be bad unless that tendency is a weakness!  I think this is how great athletes become great - they learn to look for the tendencies in another player which give them the edge to be one move in front of them - a move which will catch them off-guard.  We don't want to be so "predictable" in our walk that the weaknesses we have become the tool by which we are undone.  We want to keep the enemy of our soul guessing!

Discovering deep thoughts is sometimes pretty hard - but if we want to really discover what makes a man or woman what they are, we need this insight.  We also need this insight if we are to discover how it is we break life-dominating habits in life.  Things hidden deep in our thoughts are often the key to us "breaking dawn" in the realm of overcoming tough issues. Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1922 for his atomic model and breakthroughs in quantum theory.  He was truly a "deep-thinker".  Yet, he often said one needed to change one's way of thinking in order to find solutions in what one was considering.  The fact of the matter is that many times we need to restructure our way of thinking in order to come up with new solutions to the problems we face!

Now, if you are a deep-thinker you will understand what I am about to say.  You don't exactly like to expose all the stuff you are pondering.  Why?  It is your thought and the things you are considering in the depths of those pondering moments may not always be understood by others around you.  Sometimes the greatest discoveries are made when we can be transparent with the things we hold so deeply!  In the action of sharing those "deep thoughts", it is like dawn breaking in on the darkness of night - the light begins to dawn in a fresh way and we often see things with an entirely new perspective.  I am always amazed when this happens in my own life - because what I "thought" I had all figured out in the depths of my musings I come to discover will not work as well in the "light of day"!

A truly "smart" individual will learn how to mine these deep thoughts not only from others, but from within themselves.  There is this unrealized benefit of making this discovery of thought - it often exposes the tendencies of an individual to the light of day!  From my own perspective, when I finally share what I have been musing upon for some time, I may often discover the complexity of what I was considering was really quite simple - it just needed a little exposure to light in order to realize that!  A good friend will help you to "mine" those deep thoughts.  A truly wise individual will learn when that moment will yield the greatest reward - and they will have the skill with which to bring forth those deep thoughts.  We all can benefit from the sharing of our "musings" - if not to benefit the life of another, it may just be to finally break free of some tendency within us which has become the weakness by which another may predict our response in life.  Just sayin!