Actions Follow Thoughts

Actions Follow Thoughts

Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

Philippians 4:8

What have you been thinking about today? Have you thought about your schedule, your plans for the coming week, or even your hopes? What you think has an impact on how you live in your home and in society as a whole. But how society thinks also has an impact on who you are and what you believe. Those who surround us influence how we treat children, a spouse, and one another. Those who believe in the Bible—and think about what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable—will live differently from those who put their own interests first.

The care of the elderly in the Amish society points to this:

The way the Amish care for their elders helps preserve the communal society, or gemeinschaft, they continue to value. This communal society stands in stark contrast to the individualism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in which each person calculates what is in his or her best interest. . . . In contrast, the Amish seek to preserve cooperative relationship and informally agreed-upon rules, most of which are unwritten and sometimes even unspoken.

Today our social changes have made us an individualistic society in which people no longer automatically help one another or share freely what they have. Instead, each individual’s main concern is over his or her own possessions and time. We may not want to open our homes to an elderly relative. We may not want to visit someone who repeats “the same old stories.”

Yet positive change can happen within us, and it all starts with our thoughts. We don’t have to be Amish to strive for Gemeinschaft (community) relationships that are “intimate, personal, and cooperative.” When we fix our minds on what is true and honorable and excellent and worthy of praise concerning God and the people He has placed in our lives, our actions will soon follow.

Dear heavenly Father, cleanse my thoughts. May they reflect only what honors You, and may my actions follow.