About Thoughts Flashcards
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If you know the companions of his mind, you will know what kind of man he is.
It is not the sufferings or the consolations of life that directly affect character, but the thoughts that men call around them at such times. No external thing can in itself affect the inner life of the soul. Men are material; the soul is spiritual.
It is not the sufferings or the consolations of life that directly affect character, but the thoughts that men call around them at such times. No external thing can in itself affect the inner life of the soul. Men are material; the soul is spiritual.
If you succeeded in emptying your mind of every undesirable thought, what then? You cannot empty it and then begin to fill it with better thoughts. No, you must empty it of evil by filling it with good.
The mind is ever working, never at rest. It will feed upon whatever food is given it. If it is given wholesome food, it will develop and grow strong.
He, therefore, who wishes to overcome any habit of evil thoughts must do so indirectly rather than directly, trying not so much not to indulge in anger as to fill the mind with loving and kindly thoughts, meeting discontent by rejoicing in the will of God, self-consciousness by wrapping himself around in the presence of God — turning as promptly as possible to think of something bracing when he is conscious of the presence or approach of evil.
This, and the constant effort to keep the mind interested and occupied about healthy subjects that it can enjoy without strain or weariness will do much to recover it from the ill effects of the lack of discipline. It is a great matter to know how to give it relaxation without laxity and, by its studies and recreations, to prepare it for prayer and the more strenuous work of life. A mind that has a wide reach of interests and is constantly kept busy will have no time and no care for morbid thoughts. And the mind that is constantly fed on healthy and nourishing food will turn away from poison, however daintily served.
If, therefore, there is to be any spiritual growth, there must be a growth in self-knowledge.
Learn to examine yourself in the light of Christ
The more perfect the life that crosses our path, the clearer and more penetrating the light that it all unconsciously sends flooding our souls.
Our self-examination deteriorates often, I think, into an often unilluminating piece of self-analysis, because it is, so to speak, conducted in the dark. It should be done in the presence of One who realizes all our noblest, often our forgotten, ideals. Our self-examination is not an abstract thing; it should be the comparison of ourselves with the most perfect, and at the same time most stimulating, standard.
Each temptation is a question put to the soul. “What kind of a being are you? Do you love God or the following of your own inclinations?
There was much in the Magdalene that she had never used, perhaps never dreamed of, until she came to our Lord. He revealed to her the secret of true self-development, which is another word for sanctity. And she found under His guidance that everything in her had henceforth to be used, and used in a fuller and richer way than she had ever imagined possible. It was in no narrow school of self-limitation, in no morbid school of false asceticism, that this poor sinner was educated in the principles of sanctity, but in the large and merciful school of Him who has been ever since the hope of the hopeless, the friend of publicans and sinners; who knows full well that what men need is not to crush and kill their powers, but to find their true use and to use them; that holiness is not the emptying of life, but the filling; that despair has wrapped its dark cloud around many a soul because it found itself in possession of powers that it abused and could not destroy and did not know how to use. Christ taught them the great and inspiring doctrine “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”14
Sin is the misuse of powers that God has given us, the use of them for ends for which they were never intended.
In choosing evil, I violate my whole nature and weaken my will. In choosing good, I act according to my nature, and my will grows stronger and ever more reliable.
To become good, you have not to destroy it or rid it of anything inherent in it, still less to lay it aside unused, but rather to use it, weakened and debased as it is, in the energetic choice of good
Turn your God-given powers to the good
