HABITS OF THE HEART

You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not kill, and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.'  But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgement . . . (Matthew 5:21-22).

This guy was in a counseling session when he told his therapist about an incident that happened the previous week.  He said he was out for his daily walk, as the therapist had instructed him to do, when he came to a thorny thistle patch.  He took off all his clothes and rolled around in the thistle patch naked.  The therapist asked the man why he would do such a thing.  The man replied, "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Though the story is fiction, yet there are many who roll around in that proverbial "thistle patch" because they cultivated emotions and thoughts that, nurtured long enough over time, resulted in painful and destructive behaviors that "seemed like a good idea at the time."  That is why Jesus went to the root of negative and destructive behaviors, our thought and emotional lives, and condemned the nurture of them.  One cannot stop a thought from coming into his mind, but he can refuse to nurture negative thoughts and emotions by thinking and doing positive things.

Have you let your heart fall into the habit of negative thinking?  Do you nurture negative emotions?  Perhaps you could plant and nurture the positive by resolving to read and meditate on God's Word each day, choosing to be a happy person in spite of being surrounded by sin and negativity.  There are a lot of depressing things happening in the world, and there will always be until the Lord returns, so, choose not to participate in the depression by developing positive habits of the heart.

Our Father's Blessings,
Tom