I recently have been listening close to my husbands fishing stories. They are all completely true, the fish were huge… they got away…so… no fish to fry in our house. Well I found out that the line broke… I watched as he patiently put a heavier newer line in place. My mind wandered to the place of imagination as it frequently does. I imagined the bait that Satan throws at me. Since he’s not very creative, it’s usually the same old bait. Something he knows I like. After working out for two hours, how could I be tempted with Cookies? Well, working out makes me hungry I say… there I go… undoing two hours of work!
The LORD has taught me to watch out for snares. In his word he speaks about “Casting cares”. When I bring my faults and temptations to the Lord, he breaks the line so that I can’t be caught by the enemy of my soul.
I was reading in the word about guarding my heart because out of my heart, the issues of life flow. (Not a direct quote) well… in order to guard my heart, I must guard my mind. I have written in my bible,” The gateway to the the heart is the mind”. I must have heard a preacher say that. It is scriptural because daily we must cleanse our minds with the word of God. I think of the story that I heard my son in law tell in a message he delivered. It’s about an old circuit preacher who became the mentor for a mentally retarded teenage boy. They road together, camped together and prayed together. That boy loved to hear the word preached and wanted to be a blessing to the preacher.
One day he asked how reading the bible could give you a clean heart. The old preacher simply gave the young boy a Colander and asked him to go get some water from the stream. The boy tried and tried to capture the water, but of course it just kept falling out. He came back to the preacher and said, “Sir, this won’t hold no water”. The preacher asked him if the vessel was clean… he said… “It is now”. And so it is with me. I have to have this living water. I just can’t get enough of it. So pure… so sweet and it is an everlasting water the washes my brain. Just what I need… to be brainwashed!
Here’s what the Lord said to Joshua …Joshua 1:7-8 “Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.”