Thoughts for another day

February 6, 2012

Today's verse: Sirach: 37:17, 18. The root of all conduct is the mind; four branches it shoots forth: Good and evil, death and life, their absolute mistress is the tongue. (NAB – copyright acknowledged)

(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

The human mind is the fount of all thought and through it, action. Therefore the mind of a man determines the things that make him what he is.  A mind, rooted in the Spirit is bothered about the things of the Spirit, whereas a mind, rooted in the sinful things of the world is headed toward death as it is hostile to God and does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so, hence it doesn't adhere to God who is life!

The mind is the seat of the deepest things of a man and the repository of all he is.  For example if a man is good intrinsically, his mind manifests this clearly and establishes him as being good even as it directs all good things: out of his mind come good thoughts triggering good actions.  On the contrary an evil mind brings forth vile things and so vile actions by the man who possesses it.

Our Word today says that the root of all conduct is the mind and a mind fortified with God's Word is equipped to handle things of God, which are prayer, proclamation and healing among many other things God asks us to handle as His children.  Good and evil both proceed from the mind and thus, death and life.  The mind is able through its stimulus, to encourage a man to be good or evil and so on.  The clearest sign of what is in the mind is what it does with the tongue which is the mistress of all the four traits in a man viz. death and life, good and evil.  Just as a ship's rudder though tiny, controls the huge ship; so the tongue, though small, controls the man.  Now the tongue is fed with stimuli from the mind and therefore the tongue is an indirect reflection of the state of the mind.  If this be so, let us then steer the mind toward God and pile it with His Word, so that in time the mind will be for God, ruled by God and worked by God to direct all things pleasing to Him.