"The mind is always hungry and will take in whatever we give it."

A thought by Zig Zigler, from his book, Better Than Good (p. 57). Thomas Nelson, Kindle Edition.  (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)

So very true.

Zig says, "Think what the world might miss based on what you’re filling your mind with. We pore over the newspaper every day like it has the secrets to life in it. Most people would say they aren’t inspired to be a better person by reading the paper, yet they do it. They’d also say they are inspired to reach greater heights by reading the Bible and other great books—but they rarely do. Why do we spend more time reading what won’t help us than reading what will?

"I read the paper nearly every day because it provides information that helps me in my work (stories, facts, trends, and the like). But I don’t read it at the expense of reading and studying my Bible. I read each daily so I know what both sides are up to!"

He goes on, "I love the story of the Eskimo who used to pit his lead sled dogs against one another in weight-pulling contests. The old Eskimo had one black dog and one white dog, and they seemed to out-pull each other on a regular basis. Amazingly the old Eskimo always placed his bet on the winning dog. Long after the two dogs were retired, one of the villagers asked how he always knew which one of the two evenly matched dogs would win in a given contest. How did he know which one to bet on? 'It’s very easy,' the old Eskimo said. 'I bet on the one I’d been feeding all week.'

"Dogs and minds are no different—the one we feed is the one that’s going to win. If you feed the base, carnal mind, that’s the one that’s going to rule your life. But if you feed the spiritual mind, the mind that feeds on honorable and noble things, that’s the mind that will rule. The mind is always hungry and will take in whatever we give it. We just need to give it the fare God intended for it to live on."

He later says, "I learned many years ago that it was virtually impossible for me to inspire other people to fill their minds with positive, honorable, and successful thinking if I wasn’t doing the same thing myself. My objective is to lift people up, not drag them down. Therefore, I have to continually be moving to higher ground myself. And I can’t do that if I’m filling my mind with the standard American mental diet of nonedifying thoughts. I work hard at protecting myself from things that I don’t want to be in my mind. My eye-gate and ear-gate are under constant surveillance when it comes to television, movies, the Internet, music, conversations, and reading material."

He then says, "I have heard more than one heartbreaking story from men who have struggled with pornography since their teenage years because they took a 'quick look' and got hooked. Marriages and families have been ruined because of allowing unholy images and words to dominate the mind. I was shocked and disappointed a few years ago when two popular newspaper advice columnists encouraged couples whose marriages were no longer exciting to get a boost by viewing pornography together. That’s bad advice. You cannot dump garbage into a well and expect the water to be good. You cannot feed the mind on demoralizing filth and expect your life to be good, clean, pure, powerful, and motivated."

That is so true. What you fill your mind with can control you, can't it?

Yes yes!