“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 6:45

It’s estimated that the average person has anywhere from 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Imagine! Although Luke 6 talks about things being stored up in the heart, be them good or evil, I believe each one begins as a thought in the head.

Some people would argue that they don’t have control over what they think about. I agree that thoughts do sometimes enter our minds unbidden. However, we get to choose which thoughts we accept, and which thoughts we reject.

Whatever thoughts we accept we tend to dwell on. That’s how they move from our head to our heart, getting stored there and becoming the well we draw from when we speak. I, for one, want to make a concerted effort to only accept and dwell on thoughts rooted in truth.

Unfortunately, truth is a rare commodity these days. Now that technology is so sophisticated, it’s almost impossible to know what sound bites, videos or headlines are real, and what ones have been altered.

What cannot be altered is God, and His Word is absolute truth. The more we spend time reading the Bible, the more we’ll be able to use it as the lens through which we look – making it easier to differentiate between good and evil.

It also becomes the measure by which we should judge what podcasts to listen to, what TV shows to watch and what music to fill our car and home with. They become the source of thousands of thoughts and we should want them all to be positive and true. When they’re not, being rooted in truth will kick-start a response in our gut telling us it’s time to remove them from our playlist.

If our heart is the place from which we speak, we want to be sure it’s filled only with good. Taking charge of what we expose ourselves to, and consciously accepting and rejecting thoughts based on Gods’ truth are the steps to filter out the bad and store up the good.

Questions for Reflection:

• Do I recognize that I get to accept or reject whatever thoughts come into my head?
• Do the podcasts I listen to, shows I watch or news I read fill me with good thoughts?
• If not, should I continue to consume them?
• How does spending time in God’s Word help me differentiate between good and evil?