What Do You Think...

I do a lot of thinking during the day. I think about my family, friends, music, work, even how poor a violinist Itzhak Perlman is. I have also started to think about what I think about.
You see, I have learned that the way we think makes us who we are. For example, when I was about 5, I thought that running away from home would be fun. I would daydream about how I would pack my backpack with potatoes and go live on the hill next to my house. I didn't worry about how to cook the potatoes, I had planned to eat them raw. I also didn't think of the fact that my parents are very smart people and would have known where I had gone. But that didn't matter. I was going to go live by myself.
When I was 14 I browed a book from the library called My Side of the Moutan. It talks about a boy running away from home and living in a tree. Reading it brought back all of my old desires to run away. I had thought about it so much when I was young that it became part of my character and the desire was still there even though years had passed. The point of this story is that what we think becomes what we are. If we think on this world, we will become like it. But, if we train our minds to dwell on Jesus and His character then we will become like Him.
"We want the transforming grace of God to take right hold of our thinking powers. We may think evil, we may continue to keep our minds upon objectionable things, but what does this do for us? It conforms our entire experience to that which we are looking upon. But by beholding Jesus we become changed into His likeness. The servant of the living God sees to some purpose. The eyes are sanctified, and the ears are sanctified, and those who will close their eyes and ears to evil will become changed." (2MCP 670)