Whatever

I was going through the mass of e-mails that come in everyday. I use a filter, but they still find a way to leak through. So I was looking at each one determining which were valid and readable and which ones weren't. It was a weeding through process.
It got me to thinking, we do the same things with all the stimuli that come into our lives. A temptation comes along, we decide whether we want to deal with it or let it go. Unfortunately, we do the same things with the people who come in. We either visit with them or just ignore them, pretending to be busy.
What causes us to do this? Hopefully, we have trained our conscience to know what is good. But many of us (me included) allow things into our lives that shouldn't be there. We may think this is a modern problem. The introduction of the computer has made us this way.
Paul said centuries ago, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." Most of the times, we're lucky if we stop at the first thing. "Well it's true!" we might say when a piece of gossip comes our way. But did we hear the rest of the words? Noble, Right, Pure, Lovely, Admirable, Excellent, Praiseworthy. If it meets all of these criteria, then we are to think about such things. Wonderful advice from a man who never knew what a computer was. Have a great day! JW