How to Renew Your Mind (With Kelly Balarie)
Do you want to learn how to renew your mind?
According to God’s Word, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. God’s primary tool for this process is his written Word.
How to Renew Your Mind
We can also follow the wise words of those who have gone before us.
Today, we’ll look at practical suggestions on how to renew your mind as we take a look inside a powerful new book.
How to Renew Your Mind
As our bangs plastic toys into one another like there’s a war happening in his bedroom naptime, I watch sun glance through smudged windowpanes and read these familiar words: “And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27).
Hidden in the middle of this command given by Jesus, my eyes gravitate to three small words: “all your mind.” Throughout the past months, it seems the recurring theme making waves in my life is the idea of living with a renewed mind.
This has been a journey toward learning to look for what’s right in my world instead of dwelling on what’s wrong. It’s been a journey of focusing on what is pure, lovely, and good. It’s been a journey of reframing my moments and looking for God’s eternal perspective in the midst of temporal circumstances.
Change the Way We Think
The process is teaching me to think new thoughts about old things.
We can’t often control what will be set before our eyes and what obstructions will arise in the pathways of our lives. We can’t change the past or erase memories of pain, grief, and trauma. But we can learn to create new thoughts about these old things.
In her new book Battle Ready, Kelly Balarie writes:
Don’t doubt the power of your mind. This football-sized mass has the power to create and recreate everything in your life. This is why Jesus tells us not to conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
If we renew our mind, it is like getting a re-do on life. Rather than continuing with old patterns, ways of doing things or habits, we get an upgrade.
You know, when my boy was a baby: he spent nearly every waking hour of every night screaming crying.
My mind now occasionally hears that baby voice of his crying late at night. He’s 6.
This traumatic time was emblazoned in my mind. The trauma is still there. The memory is still there. The fear is still there.
Another example of this is my finger. When I was a kid I had to feel for a little bump on my right hand finger (where I sucked my thumb) to know the difference between right and left. I still when, deciphering right between left, mentally think about feeling for that bump. My mind was trained in this.
When we experience something again and again, we expect it. We expect a husband to treat us a certain way. We expect pain to keep hitting us as it always has. We expect people to abandon us. Our mind tells us: this is normal. The pain you dealt with from back then is going to happen…
…unless we renew our mind.
To renew your mind is to dig up all the old lies, mistruths, perceptions and fears and to replace them with God’s truth, hope, life, grace and fullness.
When you know God is I AM, and you let your mind conceive that truth, He overpowers all the ways you tell yourself: I am not…, I am never…, I am going to…
How to Renew Your Mind: 5 Ways
So how do we actually allow God to renew our minds and teach us to think new thoughts about old things? Kelly offers many suggestions, but here are five that are changing the way I see my world:
1. Reframe the moments when others hurt or offend you.
Extend grace by recognizing that hurt people hurt people. Give the people in your life permission to have a bad day.
2. Acknowledge your feelings of fear, anger, resentment, and pain.
Feel your feelings instead of burying them and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Validate your feelings. And then lift them to God and ask him to show you how to walk through your emotions with an open heart.
3. Surrender those hurts to the Lord.
We don’t acknowledge our emotions so that we can wallow in negativity. Instead, we release our pain to the Lord. We believe in him to offer peace, life, freedom, and joy in return.
4. Bless those who hurt you.
Instead of secretly meditating on how those who offend you will receive what’s coming, pray that God will bless them. This is the kind of prayer that transforms hearts, and the greatest transformation will likely be in your own heart.
5. Always return to a heart of love.
Thank God for his love. Soak in the reality of his love. Allow his love to be the foundation of the love you extend to others. When we live grounded in our identities as beloved children of God, we are free to love without needing affirmation in return, and we can overlook the offenses that threaten to steal our peace.
~~~
After the tenth request for snacks, our son emerges from naptime without any sort of nap whatsoever. My head throbs, and I didn’t manage to accomplish even a third of what I hoped to get done while he slept.
Crawling onto my lap, he presses his head into the gap between my collar bone and my chin and hugs me hard, like he means it. In an instant, the cares of the day, the to-do list, and the window I shattered while trying to solve our problem of moths overtaking our home all feel menial. I find myself surrounded by reasons for giving thanks, and I begin to believe this might just be the best summer ever.
Thanks to Kelly Balarie for her wise words. You can buy Battle Ready for yourself here.
Calling All Parents and Grandparents!
As the parent of two sons and a daughter, I have a heart for helping parents develop deeper relationships with their children and with God. Our kids, ages 6, 11, and 15, share this vision. They have helped me write three family devotionals for parents or older relatives to read with the children and teens they love. You can find all three books here or read more below.
Attention All Boy Moms (and Dads)!
God’s Warrior: Devotions for Boys Who Want to Grow in Courage and Strength helps young boys, ages 5-13, learn what it means to trust God and become strong warriors for his kingdom. Now, more than ever, our world needs men who are willing to boldly carry God’s love into the world. I wrote this boys’ devotional book with our two young sons, Aiden and Caleb, ages six and eleven! You’ll enjoy their honesty as we teach boys how to be strong warriors for the Lord. Find this life-changing devotional book here.
Mother-Daughter Devotionals by a Mom and Daughter
Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith is written for girls ages 7-12. It includes 60 devotions with Scripture, conversation starters, and a shared journaling section for moms and daughters after each devotion. I wrote this book with the help of our daughter, Bekah, when she was eleven. Find this one-of-a-kind shared devotional here.
Heart to Heart: A Mother-Daughter Devotional With 50 Devotions for Teen Girls is for teenage girls ages 13-20. It includes 50 devotions, each with a shared journaling section to help moms and daughters connect through writing. This is a great book for moms who want to communicate about awkward topics—like dating, sexuality, peer pressure, and more—but don’t know where to start. Bekah and I will help you right here.
Find Our Family Devotionals Here
Find all three books right here. They are also free on the Kindle Unlimited plan, which you can enjoy with a free three-month trial! These books make great gifts, and you don’t need to be the parent of young children to read them. Share them with your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or the young ones you love.
Learn Why Willpower Doesn’t Work and Experience God’s Deliverance and Healing
God wants to work in your life to accomplish what you’ve been unable to do through willpower alone. Lean Into Grace: Let God’s Grace Heal Your Heart, Refresh Your Soul, and Set You Free shares practical ways to experience God’s freedom, healing, power, and presence in your life. Find this life-changing book as a free eBook on Kindle Unlimited or for 12.99 in print right here. (If you do not have Kindle Unlimited, you can try it out with a free three-month trial!) This book will transform your life and revitalize your relationship with the Lord!
A Free Devotional to Help You Connect With God
God is a good Father, and he wants us to experience his healing, deliverance, and replenishment. Most of us have learned that we cannot heal, deliver, or refresh ourselves; we need God to do this work within us. I invite you to create space for God to transform your life by downloading a free copy of my devotional eBook, The Lean Into Grace Devotional: An 8-Day Devotional for Healing, Deliverance, and Replenishment. Find it for free here. I also offer a library of free online devotional eBooks for free. I invite you to explore the collection right here! 
