Do you need a mood ring?

Arby’s used to have television ads promoting what it called “good mood food.”

That’s a smart message to connect with. After all, who doesn’t want to be in a good mood? Who likes being in a bad mood? The idea is, you’ll be in a good mood if you eat at Arby’s.

“Mood” is something we rarely think about, yet it impacts our lives greater than most other issues. The reason is because we tend to live life by following our moods!

Understanding Moods
Human behavior, at its core, is actually pretty simple. It’s composed of the following formula:

Our thoughts create our emotions.
The combination of our thoughts and emotions create our behavior.
Thoughts –> Emotions –> Thoughts/Emotions = Behavior

Now add to that this reality: the more shallow our thoughts are, the more selfish they are.

Our thoughts are similar to an onion. Have you ever tried to peel an onion? It has multiple layers that can be peeled away until you finally get to a core. Our thoughts are like that, our surface level thinking is often quite shallow, with little consideration or even much conscious attention given to it. The deeper we go, we find more significant thought processes until finally we reach that which has become foundational to our thinking … the “core.”

Our culture has shifted away from more “critical thinking,” or depth of thought. Early in our history, what you needed for living you generated yourself: you grew your own food, you built your own house, you handcrafted your own furniture, you made your own clothes. For entertainment, you read books, were active outdoors, or interacted socially. Such a lifestyle required a life of learning, multiple skill development, and greater critical thinking. There wasn’t a helpline to call to troubleshoot whatever task you might be struggling with.

Jump into our current culture and you see we think a lot more at surface levels. Most things are bought, many skills are unnecessary because needs are provided via a plethora of purchased services, we read much less, and entertain ourselves with methods that don’t challenge us to think critically. The result is that we are often most influenced by whatever is our prevailing emotional tone. That is the definition of a “mood.”

By following and feeding our moods, we’re indulging our more surface (and thus, more shallow) thinking and emotions. Our focus, then, becomes satisfying our prevailing emotions and keeping them satisfied. The result is little depth to our selves, our situations, and our relationships. You might feel good for the duration of a mood, but because moods are based on more shallow thoughts and emotions, they don’t last long because their foundation isn’t durable. A common result: the “moody person.”

A durable foundation
Try as hard as you might, you simply cannot piece together a fulfilling life on a foundation that isn’t durable. When a mood finally fails, you must either shift moods or foundations.

Jesus exhorts us to shift foundations. Here are His own words from Matthew 7:24-27:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

When we make Jesus Christ the foundation on which we build our lives, we begin by changing how we think: “Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes,” Ephesians 4:23. The Holy Spirit works at changing us until we think like Jesus thinks. The result isn’t meandering through life by moods, but a gracious maturing:

“Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church,” Ephesians 4:14-15.

The right foundation is vital for developing depth and durability.

A critical need for discipleship
A life has to be built on the foundation Christ provides. The process for that happening is called “discipleship.” But the church has spent the past few decades responding to the “felt needs” of people rather than providing biblical discipleship. To meet “felt needs” is often the same as feeding moods.

True biblical discipleship peels away the surface layers of thinking (like an onion) to help build a new “core” or foundational thinking for believers. But a believer left undiscipled struggles with a life lived at the whim of his moods and his immaturity.

Do you live pursuing the prevailing emotions of your life? Or are you anchored on a foundation that is maturing you in the image of Christ?

Scotty