Earlier this week, a once popular item I hadn’t thought of for decades came to mind and led me in some unexpected directions, and I felt compelled to share some of it with you.

Long before we had smart watches and other high tech jewelry capable of monitoring virtually every function in bodies, we had “mood rings,” and they were all the rage for a while. They displayed various colors that supposedly revealed whether the wearer’s “mood,” or overall frame of mind, was positive, negative, or somewhere in between. Personally, I was never inclined to buy one. They were mostly out of my price range, and I’ve always been a pretty expressive guy anyway, so I didn’t really need a piece of jewelry to tell me or my friends what kind of mood I was in. 

A Two-way Street ~
One of the first things that comes to mind about this subject is the realization that moods and attitudes have a contagious quality. When I’m around positive, upbeat, optimistic people, for instance, it tends to rub off on me. Being in their presence feels good. I look forward to being with people like that, and in most cases, I leave feeling uplifted and encouraged. On the other hand, when I’m in the presence of people who are obviously upset, angry, irritated, or just generally feeling insecure and unhappy, I can sometimes feel myself being drawn into their negativity. That capacity we have to absorb, to some degree, the mental and emotional state of mind we perceive in others can be a good thing or a damaging and potentially dangerous thing, and we followers of Jesus need to be aware of it.

Though most moods develop naturally, unintentionally and have nominal impact, that’s not always the case. In a culture obsessed with technology, we must remember that just as words and images can be artificially created, enhanced, counterfeited, and strategically projected, so can moods and attitudes. After all, actors are trained to do precisely that, and they make their living doing it. And by the way, so do some, if not most, politicians. In light of that, a few inherent characteristics that we should be aware of follow here . . . 

• • The contagious nature of moods and attitudes can make them effective mechanisms for manipulating behavior. 
  • Like other forms of communication, they can transmit messages that look and sound genuine, but they might actually be dishonest, misleading, and designed to cloud our judgment and direct our decisions. 
  • Unlike other forms of communication, they can also operate continuously and exert their influence without our conscious direction. 

Passion on Parade ~
Every day, all of us see the practice of using artificially crafted, strategically projected moods and attitudes to influence our perceptions and affect our behavior.  It’s rampant throughout our culture. Passionate expressions of one kind or another are employed in everything from political ads, to marketing food supplements, to promoting charity organizations, to inciting anarchy and riotous “protests.” That quality that’s inherent in us enables us to absorb and reflect the state of mind we perceive in others and can make us good caretakers – but it can also make us vulnerable to manipulation. If some emotional expression we perceive in others happens to strike a similar chord in us, we can easily and unintentionally begin to absorb whatever message is woven into it. So, the question is, how do we protect ourselves from the endless barrage of emotionally charged efforts to inject thoughts, ideas, agendas, political decisions, and moral choices into us?  

Though AI (or SI) would doubtlessly erupt with volumes of psychobabble about the complexities of our metaphysical nature, God has a much less complicated solution for protecting ourselves. He presented it in a brief directive through Solomon, who simply said:

Keep [guard] your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23 NKJV)

A Challenging Solution ~
God’s use of the word “heart,” obviously refers to more than that physical pump in our chest. It encompasses and surpasses everything implied by the terms our culture uses, like “mood,” “attitude,” and “state of mind.” But God’s protective solution confronts us with a challenge.

The picture portrayed in the language of the text is that of a soldier assigned to guard a powerful and potentially dangerous prisoner. Our task is to figure out how to apply Solomon’s solution and effectively “guard” that vital command center. Thankfully, the Apostle Paul steps in with an incredible idea. What if we were to assign the guard duty to someone far more capable than we could ever be? Comments in his letters to the believers in Ephesus and Colosse give us a picture of how that arrangement would work:

…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height —  to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19 NKJV)

Imagine that . . . Our risen Savior offers us a guard who isn’t just standing watch over our hearts, but who will take up residence and live there 24/7. And not only that, but this incredible Guard will fill that vital space in us with all the fullness of God. That means that He will not only defend us from subtle, subversive, manipulative lies, He will also blend His own heart with ours, so that our moods and attitudes reflect His own. But Paul wasn’t done yet. He elaborates on how the arrangement functions in this admonition to the followers of Jesus in Colosse:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV)

More Than Protection ~
The peace that Paul refers to here is that calming and protective confidence that the Spirit of Christ produces within us. In this dangerous world with all its manipulative and deceptive messages, we can be assured that the Guard sent to live within us will not only never abandon His post, He will do even more than simply protect us. He will also equip us to live out His message of love, forgiveness, healing, and life-changing power and He will do it in ways that everyone can see . . . No mood ring needed.

TWEETABLES ~ Click to tweet and share from the pull quotes below.  Each one links directly back to this article through “X” . . .

• • Like other forms of communication, they can transmit messages that look and sound genuine, but they might actually be dishonest, misleading, and designed to cloud our judgment and direct our decisions. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
  • Our risen Savior offers us a guard who isn’t just standing watch over our hearts, but who will take up residence and live there 24/7. And not only that, this incredible Guard will fill that vital space in us with all the fullness of God. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet) 
  • This incredible Guard will fill that vital space in us with all the fullness of God. It means He will not only defend us from subtle, subversive, manipulative lies, He’ll also blend His heart with ours, so that our moods and attitudes reflect His own. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet) 

Check out Ron’s book, “Right Side Up Thinking in an Upside Down World ~ Looking at the World through the Lens of Biblical Truth” 

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