choose

Fix your thoughts on what is true & honorable & right.

Think about things that are pure & lovely & admirable.

Think about thinks that are excellent & worthy of praise.

Philippians 4:8b



We live in a world that assaults us from every angle with thoughts & images that are pretty awful.

And now smart phones, tablets, & laptops, we can carry all this stuff anywhere & everywhere, & connect with it any time we want.

How do we avoid all the negative stuff that's out there.

The longer I live, the more I believe it is simply a choice as to whether we absorb it or not.

Iow, just don't look at it,listen to it, read it, or watch it.

Just don't be the person or do the things our culture & our world tells us we have to be & do.

Just don't.


Is that an oversimplification?

Maybe...

But what would any of us suggest otherwise.

Connecting with "the things of this world" is a choice - we can either choose to connect, or we can choose to not connect.

That's what Paul is saying here - choose what your absorb.

Remember where Paul wrote this - Rome. I'm sure they had every sin known to humankind there,

     & they were actively thinking up new ones!

Even though Paul was in prison when he wrote this, he'd been out & about in the world - he knew what kind of bodaciously sinful place it was.


And he says to his Christ follower friends in Philippi, make the choice to absorb with good.


How to we come in line with his thinking?

I would say it's a process of forming a habit of not absorbing the negative, sinful part of our world.

Iow, we just start saying no to connecting with it - and each time we say know to it, it becomes easier to say no the next time.

(on the other hand, if we say yes to connecting, it will be easier to say yes the next time.)


So today, let's be aware of what we expose ourselves to & connect with,

     & let's start choosing to not connect with the sinful stuff today & connect instead with the things around us that are "good, true, honorable, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, & worthy of praise".