The Power Of Suggestion

The Power of Suggestion

“Got any plans for this weekend?” my friend Sal asked.

I’m pretty sure I told him I’d be camped in front of a big screen with like-minded friends, wearing something maroon and watching the Aggies whip up on their opponent of the week.

“How about you?” I countered.

“Fayette County Fair in La Grange,” he said, “to see ZZ Top.” For those who are not of that era, ZZ Top is a rather eccentric and storied Texas band who began making music in the 1970s, and they haven’t quit yet. Arguably their most famous song is a tune called “La Grange” about the tiny Texas town where they’d be playing.

As soon as Sal said the words ZZ Top and then La Grange, a guitar riff went off in my head and kept on playing. Just those few words were a powerful enough suggestion to keep me humming for the rest of the day. I went to bed that night with a healthier respect for the power of suggestion.

You and I are created with the power to suggest. We can remind ourselves. Speak to ourselves. Encourage ourselves. Fill our hearts and our ears and our eyes with more sensory input than our lifetimes could possibly catalog. So it makes sense, doesn’t it, that we should be selective and wise about the “tracks” we fill our minds with?

The ancient Jews (along with some modern Orthodox Jews) had a practice of binding words—the words of God—to their foreheads and arms using strips of leather and tiny boxes called phylacteries. That may seem strange to Western eyes, but the Jews meant to remember what God had said—to keep his commands and his precepts at the ready.

I carry his words with me, too—but they’re much less obviously stored. I hide them in my heart and let them suggest to me what counts, what matters, what to love, where to look, when to speak and to whom. All day, every day, they powerfully suggest that I am my Father’s and that this is his world. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.

Philippians 4:8, MSG