There are certain questions that haunt us, time and again. Even when we think we’ve found happiness, even when we tell ourselves, “Yes, I’ve found the purpose of my life” — the questions still creep back in. Am I successful? Will I be successful? Why do I exist? What would happen if I didn’t? Questions like these have a way of returning, no matter how settled we thought we were.
It’s normal to think this way. But here’s the thing — for everything, God has a purpose, and for every one of us, that “mid-life crisis” moment will come. The name itself is fitting, because it never really comes at the beginning or the end. It comes in the middle. The middle of our life, the middle of our calling, the middle of our startups, the middle of our work. You’ve probably noticed this in others, maybe even in yourself — after a while, people start to drift. They begin to wonder if there’s a better way, a better approach, a different path altogether. And it almost always happens in the middle of the work, never at the start.
The Middle Is Where We Waver
John the Baptist’s beginning was extraordinary. He was keen, invested, wholly committed to the ministry God had given him — the one who pointed to Christ and declared Him to the people. And yet, in prison, right in the middle of his calling, doubt crept in. He sent his own disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?“ (Matthew 11:2-3).
Peter’s beginning was just as remarkable. He was bold enough to ask Jesus to let him walk on the water. But where did he begin to sink? Not at the start, and not at the end — but in the middle, “when he saw the wind” and grew afraid (Matthew 14:30), right as he was closest to reaching Jesus.
So many thoughts come to us along our journey. What matters isn’t that the thoughts come — it’s how we entertain them. Lucifer, too, had a thought: “I will ascend to the heavens… I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14). That single thought is what turned him into the adversary we know today.
Some Thoughts Are Dangerous
Certain thoughts can be genuinely dangerous to us, and this is something we need to reckon with. Eve’s mind was corrupted the moment a thought was planted in her — the serpent’s suggestion that God had forbidden her from eating from any tree in the garden (Genesis 3:1-6). In chasing that one distortion, she forgot she had an entire garden given to her to tend and enjoy.
Sarah, while waiting on God’s promise, entertained a thought of her own — that she could build a family through her servant Hagar instead (Genesis 16:1-4). Thoughts like these are often the beginning of the very headaches we later carry. In the moment, our plans can seem foolproof, even wise. And what’s unsettling is that God doesn’t always correct us right away. He stays quiet. He lets the thought run its course, and He tests us in that very middle point.
Saul was king, and God had already rejected him — he knew this. But it was a song, sung by the women of Israel, celebrating that “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7), that stirred something in him. From that day on, Scripture says, “Saul kept a jealous eye on David” (1 Samuel 18:9) — one thought, and it consumed him until he was no longer himself.
Some Thoughts Can Build Us
But not every thought that pulls us aside is dangerous — some are an invitation. Moses saw a bush that was burning but not burning up, and his thought was simple: “I will go over and see this strange sight“ (Exodus 3:3). He left his sheep to climb up and look closer. And Scripture tells us that it was only “when the LORD saw that he had gone over to look,” that God called out to him from within the bush (Exodus 3:4).
Sometimes God places something right in front of us — something we notice, something we wonder about, something we’re drawn to pursue. He’s simply waiting to see if we’ll respond to it. And when we do, that’s often when He calls us.
Guard What You Entertain
Today, what we’re thinking is very important. So can we put our thoughts in check, and fear God? God’s plan needs to be aligned with our thoughts, not the other way around. Scripture tells us plainly to take “captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5) — every ill thought needs to be stopped and rebuked in the name of Jesus, because if left unchecked, these are the very thoughts that can pull us away from the calling and plan God has for us.
Gehazi is a warning of exactly this. He watched his master Elisha refuse any payment from Naaman, and he thought to himself that Elisha had let Naaman off far too lightly — surely he could go and get something for himself (2 Kings 5:20). That one thought cost him dearly; the leprosy that had left Naaman clung to Gehazi instead, “white as snow” (2 Kings 5:27). It’s not our place to think about who God is letting go lightly, or who deserves to be taken advantage of. Our thoughts should be fixed on how mightily God can work in our lives — not on what mighty work we can extract in His name.
Our God is a God who “perceives my thoughts from afar” (Psalm 139:2). Even “the meditation of my heart” (Psalm 19:14) should be pleasing to Him. So what we think, quietly, privately — that matters more than we often realize.
Even David wasn’t immune. After Saul had sworn he would no longer pursue him, David still thought to himself, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul” (1 Samuel 27:1). That thought sent him running to the Philistines. Yet by God’s grace, the Philistine commanders themselves sent David away before the battle at Mount Gilboa — the very battle in which Saul died (1 Samuel 29:6-7; 1 Samuel 31:1-6). If David had been present, Israel might have believed he’d had a hand in Saul’s death, and that would have tarnished both his name and God’s plan for him.
God Waits, He Doesn’t Always Stop Us
Dangerous thoughts don’t always get shut down the moment they appear — and we might expect God to intervene right away. But often, He doesn’t. He waits and watches to see how far we’re willing to carry a thought before we let it go. That’s the test.
He let Sarah act on her plan, and only stepped in once it says “the matter distressed Abraham greatly” (Genesis 21:11) — once Abraham was already sorrowful, caught in the dilemma his own choices had created. He didn’t stop David from running to the Philistines either — He simply moved the circumstances so David was pulled away at the last moment, before the damage could be done.
Aligning Our Thoughts With His
We are called to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2) — not conformed to whatever thought happens to pass through it. Let’s put our thoughts in check, and let’s fear God in how we think.
Those who learn to think rightly are the ones God will choose — pulled, like an arrow ready for its purpose, from the Quiver of God
