Cutting into thoughts

Regardless of how you present yourself to the outside world, the Lord has a front-row seat to everything that goes on in your mind. Are you glorifying Him with your thoughts? Or are you cultivating sinful mental habits that will cripple your spiritual growth and poison your heart? The patterns of your thought life are borne out in your behavior—what does yours say about you?

That is a quote from a blog entitled Where Sin is Hatched.  It is something to ponder, on whether or not our very thoughts are God glorifying.  Often I find myself pushing certain ideas to the back of my mind, refusing to believe I even thought them to begin with.  Yet I have found that this is not beneficial at all.  I try now to admit that sin, and ask God to change my heart in the manner ... which honestly can hurt.  Who would know that we cling so tightly to our thoughts?  Even as something as simple as harboring a deep grudge that we try to hide even from ourselves.  All that is born from me reading this blog, and the thought that have been overcoming me in past weeks.  It is a bit of a mess, so I apologize, but I suppose that is what happens when you come to seek to describe your thoughts.

It feels like I'm focusing a lot on my sin, but in reality I'm not.  In seeing my sin, I see God's infinite Grace and great Love all the more.  "Humble me more!" I cry, for even if it hurts to be broken down, oh what amazement it produces for our God! Remember Eustace from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader? When he is being stripped of his dragon skin by Aslan himself, he says:

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.

It hurt, but it was good.   Yes, that is what it is as I admit my own shortcoming, for then I can be more thankful for my God.