A YOUNG Christian once said to a well-known servant of the Lord, “I am bothered with bad thoughts.”
“My boy,” returned the man of God, “if birds fly around your head you can’t help it; but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair.”
If you had a grapevine, tender and green,
Growing taller and taller each day,
And a little fox tried to spoil your vine,
You’d drive that fox away!
If you had a heart all cleansed from sin,
And you grew more like Jesus each day,
And bad thoughts tried to spoil that life,
Seek to drive those thoughts away!
But how? perhaps one might ask. Seek to be occupied with Christ, who overcame all the power of evil at the cross, who rose again, and who lives for you in the glory. Look up to Him, with the sense of your own weakness and utter helplessness filling your heart. And in the attitude of dependence of soul, go on with your eye resting on Him, who gives strength when there is faith and a felt sense of weakness.
ML-04/12/1964