Swept away by your own thoughts …

The publication, Our Daily Bread, routinely shares fun or insightful little stories, like this one …

One dark rainy night a salesman had a flat tire on a lonely road. But to his dismay he had no lug wrench. Seeing nearby a farmhouse, he set out on foot. Surely the farmer would have a lug wrench, he thought. But would he even come to the door? And if he did, he’d probably be furious at being bothered. He’d say, “What’s the big idea getting me out of bed in the middle of the night?” This thought made the salesman angry. Why, that farmer is a selfish old clod to refuse to help me!

Finally the man reached the house. Frustrated and drenched, he banged on the door. “Who’s there?” a voice called out from a window overhead.

“You know good and well who it is!” yelled the salesman, his face red with anger. “It’s me! And you can keep your old lug wrench! I wouldn’t borrow it if it was the last one in the county!”

We laugh at the story as if it’s silly fiction. Well, it’s fiction, but our being carried away by this kind of irrational thinking is a habitual experience for many people.

Have you ever had something important to talk to someone about, and like the farmer in the story you rehearse in your thoughts an interaction with that person that happens only in your mind but nevertheless evokes real emotion in you?

We do this often!

And it can cause us great trouble.

In fact, entertaining some thoughts that shouldn’t be entertained can do more than get us into “trouble,” it can lead us into sin. That’s why the Apostle Paul tells us not to do this:

“Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires,” Romans 13:14.

What happens if you do imagine in your mind some possible ways of indulging your evil desires? James tells us:

“Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death,” James 1:14-15.

There are just some things we should not entertain in our thoughts. Pastor Wayne Cordeiro speaks to this issue in his book, “Attitudes That Attract Success”:

Set a sentry over the lid of your heart, and don’t open it indiscriminately. Do not allow entry to poisons, toxins, robbers and thieves. Judge every thought, and if it is unfit for your attention, flush it! We do that with other waste matter, so why not for wasteful thoughts?

Are you entertaining thoughts you shouldn’t be? Are you imagining the worst about others, and then treating them as if your imaginations were real?

Scotty