
I can often hear the train whistle blow from the tracks below my house, followed by the loud clanking of cars being moved back and forth by the engine. The sounds remind me of something my dad taught me years ago. “Don’t let your emotions control your actions. A train is always controlled by the engine, not the caboose.”
When we choose to allow emotions centered around jealousy, anger, bitterness, fear, or grief to consume our daily thoughts, we become prisoners to those thoughts; never being able to move on through the continuum of life.
We are what we think and Satan can and does use our emotions to keep us in an irrational, self centered and desperately lost condition. (Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8) Purposeful thinking fights this trap.
Purposeful thinking includes admitting a problem; then facing it head on using the Word of God as our guide. Purposeful thinking is knowing that you can’t always control what happens to you; but you CAN control how you respond to it. Purposeful thinking means going directly to the person who hurt you instead of telling everyone else about the problem. Purposeful thinking is the realization that the world does not owe you anything. Purposeful thinking is doing the right thing when no human is looking.
Father, help me to not let my emotions control my actions. Help me to live purposefully every day. Help me to keep looking to You for guidance; to think and then to do the right thing even when I don’t feel like it. Amen
Philippians 4:8: Fix your mind on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about. (The Living Bible)