Life is happier when it’s appreciated than when it’s analyzed. The human mind can be both analytical and perceptive. We need both aspects.

Too often inspiring thoughts pass thru the brain without getting to the heart. Like your eyes slowly scan a lovely view, let your inner awareness scan for insight. Contemplation watches and waits for inspiring thoughts to emerge from within.

Seeing beyond your opinions, feelings, and analysis, is the beginning of wisdom. Contemplation observes many things that can’t be see with the eyes. Setting aside inner distractions to quietly ponder enables us to receive inspirations. You can learn much by observing (as a spectator) the thoughts and feelings within you.

Analysis finds ways to manipulate. Contemplation finds ways to appreciate. Often heart-felt contemplation can give you better answers than mind-based analysis. Contemplation looks beyond analysis and beholds mystery and wonder. It gazes at hope that the physical eyes cannot see.

By carefully observing your thoughts and emotions you can learn to manage them better. We all need “depth perception,” the ability to observe deeper than physical appearances. Nothing can remove any darkness that’s in you, if you choose to shut out the light.

Since we have thoughts we disagree with, they must come from another source than us. Spiritual discernment helps us distinguish between the thoughts in our mind that originate with us and those from other sources. It’s good to sort thru your thoughts & to decide which ones you need to get rid of.

Contemplation ponders intangible concepts (like beauty) with wonder and awe, instead of with rationality. Trying to find yourself isn’t the pursuit of happiness. Forgetting about self, is. To “find yourself,” you need to discover what’s pulling you away from God’s image. You can discover & remove the viral thoughts that infect your brain with dysfunction.

Be still and let “Christ in you” focus your attention on whatever He wants to show you. The mind can originate thoughts. It can also be used to perceive insights from God. Introspection, focused on self, produces guilt–but on “Christ in you,” glory!

No matter how much we long for them, the future or the past will never be in the present. Here’s the road to joy: Set your inner perception on the living Jesus, instead of on self. An introspective search for Jesus will set you free from introspective analysis. God’s light shines in people’s hearts, yet many don’t recognize it when they see it.