For he was a Western man, and only a Western man…nor did he wish to be anything else.”
–Louis L’Amour (Shalako)
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
–Matthew 6:24 (NKJV)
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I heard a sermon on Sunday in which the question was asked, “What is the soundtrack of your life?” Perhaps yours is the “Sound of Music,” and someone else’s is “Thunder Road.” My wife poked me and said mine was the “Theme of the Magnificent Seven.” Now I think there is some truth in what was being said. The music you listen to definitely tells much about who you are as a person, what you like to do, where your thoughts are. The same is true of the books you have in your library and what you read (if you read at all).
I came across this little writing and I want to share it. I used it once before last spring. It was written by Clarence W. Cranford.
“If your mind was an art gallery in which your thoughts would become visible like pictures hanging on a wall, would you be willing for your mother to see the exhibit?
This question was asked in a college chapel service. Some of the students treated it lightly. They joked about it afterward. But some of the students knew it was no laughing matter. The pictures we carry in the mind color the rest of our lives and affect our relationships to God, the greatest art critic of all.
During the exile some of the Jewish people fell into bad habits. They adorned the walls of a room in their houses with ugly idols. This they did in the dark, not permitting their friends to enter and see what they had in that room. That room became a wall between themselves and God.
The mind is our art gallery. We adorn it with many pictures, some good and some bad. Let us pray for God’s help in the selection of the pictures we imagine.”
“Have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, every man in his room of pictures?”
–Ezekiel 8:12
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Praise the Lord! The book is at the publishers. Hopefully, it will be ready soon so keep a lookout for, “Mal de Ojo.”