Getting Out Of Our Head

A portrait of Anthony Hopkins. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A friend posted this quote on Facebook last week:

There was nothing in his construction, in his architecture that would permit him to, but Peter did venture out on the water. It was audacity; it was temerity; it was inconceivable; it was madness; insanity of the first order. But he stepped out and the water held him; he took the second leg and the water held him – and he began to walk to Jesus! After some time he stood and his history began to challenge him... The key to audacity is to kill the intellectual!

– C.D. Gwamna

I did not think much of it, but I ran into another quote while surfing the web this week:

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap.

- Anthony Hopkins

I have no special liking for quotable quotes. I believe it does sometimes breeds the tendency for taking words out of context to justify our erroneous thinking, like we Christians sometimes do with few sections of the bible. However, I do realise the main points of the two above quotes – the trap of overthinking issues and the pitfalls of relying on our minds.

Now it takes a certain kind of man to get addicted to the intellectual side of things. The guise of deep-thought can make us feel sage-like, give an air of superiority, and an aura of awesomeness some people strive to attain. But there is a trap in overemphasising thinking so much that it hampers us taking action on anything. It also encourages lazy thinking and focuses on the process of the thinking itself and not the results it is suppose to bring.

Obsessing on thinking does not bring in good ideas. It hampers us from following God’s words for our lives. It also kills our faith in God and fosters worrying, creating an idol in the shape of our intellect.

Getting out of our head makes us take ourselves less seriously so we can take in joy of living, of family, and of friends. It also has the potential to open us to childlike faith in what God can do.

Jesus said it all by saying:

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.
- (Matthew 6:26-34 KJV)