A more excellant way, illuminated

Water is pure when it falls and where the light reflects seems purest.



How could a person ever become what they are not thinking?



This picture seems to invite good thoughts. On the other hand no one is in the picture with any other thoughts than the one looking at it. The only influence on thoughts would come from within the one looking at the picture.



What is it that makes us better?


The issue is not what we have done but what we have become.

What we have become is more than meets the eye. It is not just the result of what we have done but it is the result of our attitudes, our motives, and our desires.

Often I find that younger folks just starting out in their careers spend a lot of time reading “positive thinking books”. Good thing, I suppose. I remember being younger and I remember reading these same books over and over. After all if is true that “as a man thinketh, so is he”, then why not give some focus to what we think about?

Jimmy Carter sort of “tripped over this” when he in an interview said that he had “lusted in his heart”. When he said it he was not bragging about it but he was admitting that he knew that lusting in ones heart was not good to do that and that he knew that better thoughts made for a better man. Odd how he seemed to be made fun of for something that should have made folks appreciate his “good heart”

A “good heart” I would suggest is one that cares, and one that is pure, or trying to be pure.

Water seems it’s purest as it flows over rocks and drops through the air. Standing still it can be anything but pure. Action seems to purify the water. I would suggest that compassion is the moving purifier of thoughts, motives, and desires. The motive for the compassion then might be the next question.

The Apostle Paul said the highest of all motives for compassion is “the pure love of Christ”. He called this the more excellent way.
In the book, “The Mansion”, by Henry Van Dyke, it was illustrated what selfless giving, and compassion without motive for personal gain, really were. The book said, in answer to the question “what is it that really counts”, “Only that which is truly given. Only that good which is done for the love of doing it. Only those plans in which the welfare of others is the master of thought. Only those labors in which the sacrifice is greater than the reward. Only those gifts in which the giver forgets himself”