Whose Default?

Gen. 6:5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually

One of the first words I learned when I started to use the computer was “default”. Default what you get automatically when you don’t make a choice. For example, if your default operating system on your computer is Windows 7, when you turn on your computer it will automatically go to Windows 7, even if you have XP, Vista or any other system on your computer.

I’m suggesting that your mind tend to have a default mode as well; that there are some thoughts that your mind likes to go to once you have an idle moment or nothing serious to think about. It might be your job, or something that you want so much that it is constantly on your mind or maybe a particular daydream that strikes your fancy. This becomes your default mindset.

In the time of Noah, the world had become so wicked that God said that the default mode of the minds of the people then was just evil. They thought evil, meditated on evil, daydreamed about evil. They got so much pleasure from evil that they did not want to think of anything else! How does somebody become so evil? Well, it begins when we refuse to discipline our minds to consciously keep away from evil. When we know that things are wrong but we expose our minds to them in movies, listen to them in music and imagine ourselves doing or participating in them.

God’s Holy Spirit will tell our minds that these thoughts are wrong, but many times, because nobody can see into our minds, we relish the sinful thoughts. The result is that often our minds become addicted to these wrong thoughts. They don’t seem so wrong after a while and we sometimes move from thinking to doing them. These thoughts bring us pleasure, producing endorphins and giving us good feelings over the bad things.

The default mode of the heart is faulty, but whose fault is that? Yours, mine, if we do not let Jesus into our lives and let him change the default mode of our minds.

Dear Lord, help me to find so much pleasure in the good things that in idle moments my thoughts will automatically go to the things of God, in Jesus name I pray, amen.