In my first blog post of 2025, I'd like to share on a subject I'm calling "The Train." 

I have taken many a train in my life over the years. I once took the speed train in Japan, and then took another one in Taiwan and these things run real fast. I've also taken the slow trains in New York city, Hong Kong, Melbourne  Australia and Johannesburg, South Africa. I have been around a little bit. I know I still got plenty places to go and trains to take. 

I've been through most of the UK, but never took the trains. Always bus or car. I'd like to take a European tour by train some day. This is on my list of things to do while I'm still walking planet earth. I have been living in Charlotte North Carolina the last three years on my faith journey and have become a regular patron of the blue line train.

I'm talking trains today because these locomotives run on tracks and I'd like to talk about our trains of thought. In order for the train to get to its intended destination, it must switch tracks at the right intersection. In order for us to come to the rightful conclusions about God, about life, about situations, we must hold the right train of thought and know when to stay on track and when to switch. When someone says hold that train of thought, usually they're saying hang on to what you are thinking, and we will get back to looking at it or continue to evaluate. 

A train of thought is ideas and concepts that one holds. It is how they form an opinion on something. A lot of our decisions in life are influenced by our train of thought. This is why we have to be careful how we think and be open to changing tracks if we are going to see the world as God does. 

In a world full of many conflicting ideas and agendas on truth, we followers of Jesus hold the Bible as our source of eternal truth worth building your life on. 

Yes even the most devoted and well meaning of us can be distracted from staying on track, from holding the biblical train of thought. I mean life can be mean sometimes and the things we suffer as followers of Jesus can make us question, even doubt the biblical truth and the promises therein we are already convinced about.

God said to Joshua;
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:8)

In other words, be careful what train of thought you carry. Keep it in the Bible and you will always know which way is up. 

This year will be 26 years since I said yes to Jesus and I must say they have been the best years of my life. I wish I said yes to Jesus earlier, but God’s timing is always perfect. It matters not when you say yes to Jesus, it matters that you do. I said yes to Jesus at 19. 

Even though these last 26 years have been the best years of my life, they have also been roller-coaster type years. I'm more convinced about God today than I was yesterday but my conviction has not grown through years of blessings and ease. Yes, I have had years of blessings and ease, but I have also equally faced years of massive discomfort and pain and hurt and disappointment and disillusionment about what I believe about God. 

If we are not careful, years of hardship and struggle can derail our train of thought and have us look at God in way that He is not. They can allow doubt and cynicism to creep in. They can make us skeptical about the things of God we were once fully convinced about. They can make us question even the most obvious attributes about God.

Yet it is through hardships that we can really develope and grow a refined and upright view of God. Hardship helps us see the world for what it is, people for what they are and where and how they fit in our lives. Hardships help us see God as our constant if we so choose. But, we must so choose if we want to be fruitful for the Kingdom. If we are not deliberate and intentional about developing and growing a biblical train of thought, the enemy has many lies to offer and the best of us can fall for the devils often cunning lies.

This year you must evaluate your train of thought. Is it biblical? Have you accepted some lies as truth? Have you fallen for the enemy's subtle, cunning lies? Have you become cynical and skeptical of the promises of God. Are looking at God through the lenses of your pain and evaluating His character based on what you have suffered? Hardship can do this to the best of us. 

The Bible says of Job when faced with years of extreme hardships; 

In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. (Job 1:22)

God is not the source of our hard seasons. But God will allow hard seasons and use them to develope in us unshakeable faith. It is not God who caused Jobs troubles, Satan did. God only authorized it and it was for the purpose of proving Job's character which thankfully Job passed with flying colors.

The Bible has given us many examples of people who kept the right train of thought, Job being one of them. We do well in our generation to examine our train of thought to see if it is serving to bring about God's good intentions and purposes or it is allowing the enemy's lies to prevail.

The good thing about your train of thought is that you can disembark and get on another train. If you were on a train headed towards a broken bridge and you had a way to disembark before it falls off, you would disembark wouldn't you? It would be foolish to stay on that train. Disembarking one train of thought and getting on another is easier said than done, I know. But it is absolutely doable. God will never allow more than you can handle. 

This year, let us be deliberate about our faith in God's good promises. God is good and has good plans even when life isn't what we expect it to be. God is good in the midst of trial and triumph. God is good On the mountaintop and in the valley. God means you the very best even when the very best is not happening. 

Ultimately God wants to give us an opportunity to comform to the very image of Christ our Lord and captain.
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to  be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)

This year, will you check your train of thought?

Jesus is alive, and at work among those who will believe and let Him. God is good even when life isn't as we expect it. God can make a way where seems to be no way. This is the defiance of faith.

Father!
Will You build in us unshakeable faith in 2025. Help us to hold onto Your good promises no matter what we face. Open our eyes to see You as You are. In Jesus name. Amen!