Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Wandering... - July 29, 2009

Good Wednesday morning! Where have you been letting your mind wander lately? God gave each of us an amazing creation to use in our daily lives, the mind. We think, wonder, dream, remember, and just plain let it wander at times during each day. Resting the mind is just as necessary as resting the body, but we don't need to let our minds wander into the area of sin. The lust of the flesh is both physical and mental. As the body may yearn for something, so the mind responds with visions of delight.

The problem begins when we give our minds free rein to imagine immoral sex, overindulgence, visions of anger, and the many other ways that lead to destruction. Random thoughts will come and we have an adversary who whispers suggestions to each of us, but that does not mean that we have to let our minds linger on the wrong things. A good counter to the wrong type of imagining is to think on Jesus and His Word. At a time when my mind is going in the wrong direction, I find it good to recall Bible verses or to simply thank God for all that He has done for me.

Of course, our minds do rest by imagining and great ideas can come from our imaginations. I don't think that I could write fiction without imagination or tell a story without the ideas that come from listening to the Holy Spirit. Just as our adversary whispers unwholesome suggestions, so our advocate can whisper wholesome and wonderful suggestions to our listening minds. Which voice is which in that whispering? We can tell by which way the flesh pulls us. Like the angel and devil on the shoulders illustration, the suggestions tend toward our good from the angel and toward our destruction from the devil; though both may seem good at first glance. Sometimes we know which suggestion is for our good, but want to follow the bad whisper. "Get up and exercise" doesn't call to us in quite the same way as "go have a big, sweet donut" does.

Enjoy the blessings of God today!

Bucky

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