Bad thoughts Slipping Through the Cracks?

Fresh Manna 2009© by Pastor Tim Burt

Prov 4:23 “Guard thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life”

I live on a creek inhabited by ducks. I love to feed them. I have this big bucket filled with bird seed in the garage. The ducks love it and come running when they see me walk in the back yard carrying it.

I opened this bucket the other day to get some seed. It has a sealed lid on it but I must not have had it on quite all the way. Amazingly, when I opened it there was a dead mouse in it. I would assume he overate to his death. (It looked like he was smiling.) How he got in there was close to an impossible feat. The lid opening was almost non existent and the bucket is tall. I don’t think the mouse couldn’t have scaled it. Anyway, he found some way through the tiniest crack.

Negative thoughts and bad worldly input seems to find its way into our heart and mind through any crack we leave open. That is why today’s Fresh Manna verse says that we need to “guard our heart with diligence.” When I think of this I most often get the visual of soldiers at their post day and night watching for enemies.

This morning, I woke up and there was an old worldly song on my mind – one that I consider having negative words and attitudes. I know I haven’t thought of this song for over 15 years and I am almost positive that I have not heard it in at least that long. Where did it come from? How did it get on my mind? I don’t know. I think possibly through a dream. That is what I call a small crack. I chased this song out and replaced it with a song worshipping the Lord.

Even with the new technology of digital information storage – as good as that is, it’s archaic compared to how God has set up our brain to hold information. I don’t know the intricacies of how our brain works but I know it stores up and remembers a lot of information and somewhere down the line and not always when you expect it, some of the unwanted information and thoughts rise to the surface.

I recently talked with a man who was struggling with immoral sexual thoughts when he really wanted to have pure thoughts. He said his mind often drifted to past sexual content that he watched in movies. He stopped watching those kinds of movies but images would still come into his thoughts at the most awkward times and he was feeling condemned. What he let into the gates of his mind and heart some time ago were still affecting him today. I encouraged him to chase those thoughts out in the authority of Jesus name and refocus on godly things. It would take time but in time, he’d have fewer and fewer flashbacks if he was diligent to cast them down as evil imaginations. And, God would not condemn him for this but praise Him for his efforts to be transformed in his heart and mind. It was the devil that was accusing him.

Today’s Fresh Manna says to guard your heart because out of it come the issues of life. What you hear and see will affect the choices that you make good or bad. Even old information stored in your mind. This is why we need to be on guard as to what we let through our sense gates. Hurtful information and images, like the mouse, will slip through the slightest crack if we aren’t on guard.

Praise God today and do what the Apostle Paul taught us to do to guard our hearts. Philippians 4:8-9 says, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy; meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do…” What will be the result? The issues of life will be conducted with clear and godly thinking and choices and, as the Apostle Paul goes on to say, “the God of peace will be with you.”

In His Love,
Pastor Tim Burt