Back To Home Page To Archives - Spring of Life - H. Roger Bothwell Priming Ourselves Cognitive psychologists call it priming. It is the simple concept that we are predisposed to interpret some thing or some occasion in the light of past exposure. If I have had a bad experience with a person belonging to a specific church I will have a predisposition or bias to interpret future interactions with anyone from that church as being negative. The question arises, "Do we have the ability to prime ourselves?" The answer to that is, "Yes." The quality of our lives depends on the conscious choices we make regarding what kind of day, week, year and life we will have. If I get up feeling grumpy and do nothing to alter that, I will have negative experiences during my morning commute. My boss will irritate me at work. My colleagues will get on my nerves. If in the morning I determine this will be a nice day by priming myself with some positive thoughts there is an excellent chance my day will be a good one. This is not rocket science. This is just the way people function. I cannot overemphasis the importance of spending time each morning with Jesus. Even if it is just enough time to remind ourselves we are loved it will make a huge difference in the quality of the rest of our day. Maybe it would good for us every morning to sing in the shower that great children's song, "Jesus Loves Me This I Know." He really does. See John 3:16. I'm Roger Bothwell and my address is hrb1@tiac.net or 151 Old Farm Rd. Leominster, MA 01453. Thank you for your support of our faith ministry. Past devotionals can be accessed at Archives