Throughout the 1960s-1980s, many public service announcements used the phrase: "It's 10 PM. Do you know where your children are?” Local news anchors joined by celebrities like “Sophia Loren, Roberta Flack, Ginger Rogers, Lynda Carter, Sammy Davis Jr., Reggie Jackson, Andy Warhol, Peter Frampton, Ted Knight, Halston, Anthony Quinn, and Cyndi Lauper,” asked the same question.1 The thought behind the question was a sober one, but good. Any good parent at least knows where their children or teens are at that point in the evening, and great parents have them in bed. The nature of the question is such that if you cannot answer it with an immediate "yes," trouble is coming for your family. Even in these permissive days, most parents have control of their children at night! But what about something closer to us, which we all should be watching over - our thoughts?
Mid-Morning Freeze Frame
Since you probably head toward bed around 10 PM, think 12 hours earlier, 10 AM, mid-morning. Nighttime thoughts set on fire are a different but related danger.
So, envision yourself around 10 AM. Are you at work, at home, at school, or in transit? You know your physical location at every point of the day and can recall your emotional state, whether happy or sad, relaxed or stressed. But what about your thought life? Where does your mind roam while your physical body moves through the day?
What does a "freeze frame" of your stream of consciousness reveal at 10 AM?2 Like a good parent, you should know where your thought “children” are! And like great parents, you should have them tucked away safely. And if you do not know where your thoughts are, for which you are responsible, you must go and find them. You need to think about what you are thinking about. Keeping your heart means tracking thoughts: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
Meditate on Your Meditations
Since meditation is simply mentally chewing on thoughts, you need to realize what you are chewing on (or negatively, what thought is chewing on you). Beneath your workday activities, were you sub-vocally humming a hymn or praise chorus from last Sunday? Or perhaps you had an attitude of thankfulness for your current job or task. Ideally, as you work in the world, you work as a duty from God (with thankfulness) to God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). Or did you retain the awe of the sunrise you saw during your commute? Maybe, it captured your heart’s attention, and though you are locked indoors during work or school, you still relish the beauty of the morning skies and, above and beyond them, the beauty of the Lord!
Darker Thoughts
Sadly, your thoughts might have drifted into darker places. Perhaps a pesky co-worker is always abrupt and critical around you, and you have allowed your thinking to become frustrated. Is another co-worker the object of meditative lust (Matthew 5:27-28),l or a victim of meditative envy (1 Kings 21:1-14)? Perhaps you were experiencing the physical fatigue that seems to plague you between guzzled coffees and feeling a little sorry for yourself. Do you allow yourself to linger in discontentment where God has placed you? Did your thoughts sound a bit like the ancient Israelites: “Why is the Lord bringing” me this suffering (Numbers 14:3)?"
If pressed, you probably would not admit to such thoughts. After all, you know that you atshould not think like that, but since most people never stop to examine their thoughts, they can slip in like a thief. For a believer, thoughts can go back and forth again and again between godly and ungodly ruminations. Like the mouth that speaks both blessings and curses (James 3:10), your mind switches back and forth minute by minute, unobserved by you: “My brothers, these things ought not to be so!”
Evil thoughts spring up within you as temptations. To be tempted is common to the human condition (1 Corinthians 10:13), but do not let thoughts run free in your mind. You must become conscious of them, admonish them to depart, and reclaim your mind for God's glory and your joy. Martin Luther wrote that temptations were like birds to be driven away: “You cannot prevent the birds from flying over your head, but you can certainly keep them from building a nest in your hair.”3
5 Suggestions for the 10 AM Check-In
1. Make a Good Start! Start your day with devotional time so that the battle for those 10 AM thoughts is largely won before you leave the house. Throughout history, many Christians have found it advantageous to plan their “quiet time” in the earlier hours of the morning. If you are a night owl and prefer, like Isaac, to pray and meditate in the evening (Genesis 24:63), at least rise and pray to God in appreciation and dedicate your day (including thoughts) to God. Then, come back at night to fulfill your promise to read your Bible, meditate, and pray.
2. Keep Your Mind Full of the Good! Move forward from your morning prayer into your day with a spiritual frame of mind by connecting what you see and hear with heavenly truths. Draw upon what you read and prayed in the morning and from God's creation around you. This redirects your wandering thoughts toward what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent (Philippians 4:8). William Bridge wrote, “If the heart is filled with holy and heavenly thoughts by meditation, there is no room for evil and sinful thoughts."4
3. Be Embarrassed by Your Prodigal Thoughts! The evil we too often discover within comes from our sinful natures, not our environment. Do not make excuses for wrong thoughts! They come from you as surely as your children do. You hear people making bad and unbiblical excuses all the time: “I know I get angry, but it's so and so’s fault. Hot tempers run in my family! I worry, but you would worry, too, if you had my life. Well, I just grumble like my mother. You don't understand; that's just the way I've learned to be!” Jesus insisted evil thoughts, words, and actions come from within (Matthew 15:19). Instead of excusing them, own them, and confess them. Be reassured that if you are a child of God, you are forgiven by the blood of Christ (1 John 1:9). After candid confession, then you can consider if there were external influences on you that you should fix, like avoiding the office gossiper!
4. Catch and Release! When you catch your mind drifting, whisper a prayer of confession and plead for more holy thinking. Being tempted is not always sinful, but allowing such thoughts to lodge in your mind or spending too long considering whether to yield is sinful. Thomas Goodwin advised: "Have a watchful eye. Guard your heart all day long. Though they crowd in yet observe them; let them know that they do not pass unseen."5 His entire book on this topic, The Vanity of Thoughts, is worthy of careful reading as you prepare to battle such thoughts. God can and will empower you to do his holy will, including elevating your thinking.
5. Watch that Body! Watch over the patterns of your physical life. Too little rest, sleep, and exercise or too much eating can inflame the residual sinful nature. William Perkins cautioned: “We must use sobriety in meat, drink, and apparel, for ungodly lusts are kindled, fed, and nourished with too much pampering of the body."6 You are body and soul; wisdom uses the body to serve the soul and watches over the heart - at 10 AM, 10 PM, and every other time!
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 139:1-2; Psalm 51:10
Here is a helpful, related article cited in the article. Read all of it!
10 Things You Should Know about Christian Meditation by Sam Storms
1 https://tedium.co/2019/04/04/public-service-announcement-psa-history/; https://www.remindmagazine.com/article/4083/its-10pm-do-you-know-where-your-children-are/
2J.P. Moreland, Finding Quiet: My Story of Overcoming Anxiety and the Practices that Brought Peace, Kindle ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019], 86. Moreland advises the use of the freeze frame approach to combat worry, but it also works against many other forms of sinful rumination.
3Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan et al., vol. 42 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 73.
4William Bridge and C. Matthew McMahon, The Sweetness of Divine Meditation (Crossville, TN), 15.
5Thomas Goodwin, The Vanity of Thoughts (Pensacola, Fl: Chapel Library, 1999), 12.
6William Perkins, The Works of William Perkins, ed. J. Stephen Yuille et al., vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 292.
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