Hi everyone, I’m back from a week of camping and hiking with my family (like my hair after  five days without a shower?) and ready to get started on my new renewing of the mind project. Here it is: Make a daily list and renew my mind every time I don’t feel like doing the next thing on the list.

Scary.

I’m not a list person by nature, nor am I a get-it-done sort of person so this is a project I can’t do in my own strength. I’m looking forward to seeing what God will do.

How about you? Have you chosen your project yet? Purchased your journal? Ready to get involved in your own transformation? If you haven’t made a commitment to renewing your mind before, you’ll be surprised to see how God works through this discipline.

Fine Tuning Your Project

Before you get started, let’s spend a little time talking about your goal. You’ll want to make sure your goal is the right size for the amount of time you have available to renew your mind.

For example, let’s say your project is to stop worrying and you’re a worry-crazy person. If you say, I’ll renew my mind every time I worry, you’ll be renewing your mind all day.

If you don’t have that kind of time to give to your project (and most of us don’t), you can limit it in two different ways:

Make a Number Goal

First, you could make a number goal: I’ll renew my mind twice a day in the area of worry before I go to bed each night. If you make this goal, then each evening before you go to bed, you would think back to what you were worrying about that day and renew your mind regarding that worry. Or you could renew your mind during the day whenever a worry comes up. (I’ll show you what that will look like in another post.)

Make a Situation Goal

You could also limit your goal by choosing a smaller worry topic. For example: I will renew my mind every time I worry about my son John (or my finances or my grades). This might lead to one or two days without renewing your mind at all and then another day where you’ll have to renew your mind three or four times.

Either way works well, but you may want to renew your mind at least once a day to develop the habit of the renewing of the mind.

Setting Your Renewing of the Mind Goal

If you have time right now, pull out your journal and answer the following question: How often do you plan to renew your mind? I’m planning to renew my mind every time I don’t feel like doing the next job on my list. How about you?