As he thinketh in his heart

So today as I drove home from a morning in which far too many glances and thoughts went Tina Louise-ward, I listened to part of a devotional given in 1983 at B.Y.U. by then-member of the Twelve Ezra Taft Benson, titled "Think on Christ." The most timely and relevant section of his talk follows below.

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To introduce my theme today, I want to tell you, in his own words, of a life-changing experience that happened to President George Albert Smith when he was a boy. His own words are as follows:

As a child, thirteen years of age, I went to school at the Brigham Young Academy. . . . I cannot remember much of what was said during the year that I was there, but there is one thing that I will probably never forget. . . . Dr. [Karl G.] Maeser one day stood up and said:

"Not only will you be held accountable for the things you do, but you will be held responsible for the very thoughts you think." Being a boy, not in the habit of controlling my thoughts very much, it was quite a puzzle to me what I was to do, and it worried me. In fact, it stuck to me just like a burr. About a week or ten days after that it suddenly came to me what he meant. I could see the philosophy of it then. All at once there came to me this interpretation of what he had said: Why of course you will be held accountable for your thoughts, because when your life is completed in mortality, it will be the sum of your thoughts. That one suggestion has been a great blessing to me all my life, and it has enabled me upon many occasions to avoid thinking improperly, because I realize that I will be, when my life's labor is complete, the product of my thoughts. [Sharing the Gospel with Others (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1948), pp. 62–63]

Thoughts lead to acts, acts lead to habits, habits lead to character--and our character will determine our eternal destiny.

King Benjamin understood this. In the next-to-last verse of his great discourse recorded in the Book of Mormon, he states:

And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are diverse ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them. [Mosiah 4:29]

Then in the last verse he counsels that we must watch ourselves and our thoughts (see Mosiah 4:30)

When Christ appeared in America following His resurrection, He stated:

Behold, it is written by them of old time, that thou shalt not commit adultery;

But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in his heart.

Behold, I give unto you a commandment, that ye suffer none of these things to enter into your heart. [3 Nephi 12:27–29]

"Enter into your heart"--why, of course, for, as the scripture states: "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).

So critical is it that we understand the necessity of controlling our thoughts that President Spencer W. Kimball devoted a whole chapter to it in his book The Miracle of Forgiveness. The chapter caption "As a Man Thinketh" is the title of a book by James Allen, which President Kimball recommended. He quoted from this book three times. One quotation stated:

A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969, p. 105]

President Kimball also quotes President David O. McKay, who said:

The thought in your mind at this moment is contributing, however infinitesimally, almost imperceptibly to the shaping of your soul, even to the lineaments of your countenance. . . . even passing and idle thoughts leave their impression. [Ibid.]

The mind has been likened to a stage on which only one act at a time can be performed. From one side of the wings the Lord, who loves you, is trying to put on the stage of your mind that which will bless you. From the other side of the wings the devil, who hates you, is trying to put on the stage of your mind that which will curse you.

You are the stage manager--you are the one who decides which thought will occupy the stage. Remember, the Lord wants you to have a fullness of joy like His. The devil wants all men to be miserable like unto himself. You are the one who must decide whose thoughts you will entertain. You are free to choose--but you are not free to alter the consequences of those choices. You will be what you think about--what you consistently allow to occupy the stage of your mind.

Sometimes you may have difficulty driving off the stage of your mind a certain evil thought. To drive it off, Elder Boyd K. Packer suggests that you sing an inspirational song of Zion, or just think on its words. Elder Bruce R. McConkie recommends that, after the opening song, you might preach a sermon to yourself. In fact, he says the finest sermons he has ever preached have been preached to himself.

We should not invite the devil to give us a stage presentation. Usually with our hardly realizing, he slips into our thoughts. Our accountability begins with how we handle the evil thought immediately after it is presented. Like Jesus, we should positively and promptly terminate the temptation. We should not allow the devil to elaborate with all his insidious reasoning.

It is our privilege to store our memories with good and great thoughts and bring them out on the stage of our minds at will. When the Lord faced His three great temptations in the wilderness, He immediately rebutted the devil with appropriate scripture which He had stored in His memory.

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Shortly thereafter, I saw this article in today's Tribune about sexting being on the rise (in Davis County, in this instance) primarily among "teenage girls" who "are being charged with having or sending pornographic images on their cell phones...Teenage boys are requesting it and the girls are sending it as a way to get attention." The head-on pileup of conflicting questions that followed included:

"How will these kids survive?"

"Where were all these camphones back when I was in high school, when we had to sneak out of photography class and use our zoom lenses on the college girls sunbathing in the park, if we wanted to memorialize anything soft and supple that wasn't purveyed by Hugh, Bob or, on the rarest of occasions (as in, maybe once), Larry?"

"Are these guys that much more desirable and persuasive, or are the girls that much less confident, more desperate, more Paris/Jenna/Britney/Traci/GaGa-ized (both directly and by virtue of the boys' involvement and resulting perceptions and expectations), and therefore more willing?"

And, most chillingly, "Holy crap, this is going to be my daughter's world in a few, short years. What am I doing to help her be ready to navigate the minefield without massive casualties?"