This could be the most harmful self-imposed barrier to growth …

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We would like to think all of life’s troubles come to us from external sources … but that wouldn’t be honest.

In fact, one of the most harmful barriers to growth in any area of life is the self-imposed barrier of obstinance — a refusal to change how and what we think.

We can be so convinced that what we think IS truth itself that we become fiercely obstinate at the very thought of changing what we think. However, what we often learn the hard way is it’s often only after changing what we think, or how we think, that barriers to growth come tumbling down and real progress to living the fullness of life God has for us opens up. Michael West told a story in a sermon that illustrates how changing our thinking can result in the crumbling of false and constraining mental barriers:

    Roger Bannister was an Olympian. Every four years we have the games. Four minutes was the fastest record to ever run the mile. Ever since statisticians kept records, they knew that no one would could ever beat that record. But Roger Bannister didn’t listen to them — he went out and broke it and made sports history. Hundreds of years of record keeping — poof! But here is the most interesting part. After Roger broke the record, within ten years 336 runners broke that record also.

    What happened?

    Simple. The barrier was in the athlete’s minds. They had believed what the experts said. They were convinced no one could break the record.

    The point: You will never go beyond the barriers in your own mind. If you think you can’t, you won’t and never will try. If you are defeated in your mind, you’ve already lost the battle.

This issue of human beings being profoundly obstinate is a theme that runs throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, we see the ancient Israelites so obstinate about their sinful thoughts that God allowed them to be defeated and carried away by their enemies.

In the New Testament, Stephen rails against the continued obstinance:

“You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!” Acts 7:51.

And the Apostle Paul warns that obstinance can come with a serious cost:

“But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed,” Romans 2:5.

When we enter into a new covenant relationship with Jesus Christ, the starting point for God to begin His work of transforming our lives is the work of changing our thinking; it’s only in changing the way we think, tearing down our obstinance to the truth, that the limiting (even destructive) mental barriers fall and free us to become who God created us to be:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect,” Romans 12:2.

“But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes,” Ephesians 4:20-23.

Are you entrenched in patterns of thinking that are not true or impede your becoming fully who God created you to be? Have you erected some unhealthy mental barriers you need to remove?

Scotty