It Filters Down Into Your Heart.. And Lingers There

As I sit here waiting for Caleb to get back, I keep thinking about a conversation I had with someone at college today. We got talking about all the crud that happens in everyday life, and it reminded me of a song we sang in vacation Bible school years ago. This song (Garbage In, Garbage Out) talked about how what you put into your mind, eventually comes back out of you in some form, and then that reminded me of something I read in a book (my favorite book, by the way), called When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin. Somewhere in the book it talked about this process:

- What goes into your mind, whether put there by you or not, filters through your mind, down into your heart, comes up out of your mouth and actions, and colours your whole being -

So, it made me wonder whether or not what had been going into my mind lately was good, or well, rotten. I then thought about my actions lately.. and surprise surprise, I figured myself out (well, kind of..). I've had a pretty terrible attitude lately, and what have I been putting into my mind? Judgements about other people, complaints, a negative response for everything, I've been listening to others put someone else down, and I've even joined in... and I'm really not proud of anything on that list. I hate it, actually. It was really a heart matter.. what filtered down into my heart, lingered there, and because it wasn't good, neither was anything else that came out of me. Soooo I decided to have a better outlook on everything, a more positive attitude. Because, well, I'm pretty sure it will help me out a lot, whether it be at school, work, relationships, and just in general.

I've told you about me, but what do you put into your mind? What filters through it, filters down into your heart, and what comes up out of your mouth and actions to colour your whole being? What things come out of you? What is really on and in your heart? Good or bad, it's been put there, and it's not going to leave until you tell it to, and until you force it out. So, force it out, and decide to replace it with something better. It will benefit you and attitude, and could even change your life.