No. 246 - DON'T LET YOUR MIND GO THERE...

No. 246

Jim Davidson...NEWSPAPER COLUMN

DONT LET YOUR MIND GO THERE.....

A few weeks ago I got a very unusual letter from a reader in another state. This reader, a man, began by telling me that he enjoyed reading my column in their local newspaper and he was responding to a previous column titled, How is your judgement? He stated that I had set forth a set of criteria whether a persons judgement has been good or is deceptively poor.

He went on to tell me that he had met all the criteria: Happily married 50 years, 4 good and successful children, 5 outstanding grandchildren, retired from teaching at a major university and had numerous commendations from community organizations. This all sounded good as I was reading along but then I got the shock of my life. He then stated that he had a Dr. Jekle/Mr. Hyde personality. He said he was a Recovering sexaholic and then went into language that I would never put in my column. He was honestly trying to make a case that since he was living a good and decent life for others to see and that since his escapades have been private, that he was exercising good judgement. As he said, I trust my judgement has produced positive results from age 6 through 70, despite living a dilemma, contradiction?

Now, theres a case for you to think about and unfortunately there are thousands of others across the country who are also living a double standard life. Of course Im not talking about those who live an open, blatant lifestyle like he described in the deleted part, thats a different story. When I responded to his letter the one thing I made clear is that I was not judging him. As Ive said many times, only God can do that. He did say that he was Recovering and had not been actively involved with another male since 1980 and he was trying to get his life on solid footing.

Since this man professed to be a Christian, I shared some things with him from my heart that I wanted him to think about. First, the wrongs he had committed against God, his family and those he had been involved with. He wrote me back to say that he had tried to right the wrongs he had committed wherever possible. At this point I wrote another short letter to thank him for trying to do the right thing and to encourage him to continue with the progress he had made in his life.

Not to belabor the point but this was not the end of the story. He wrote yet another letter but this time he shared some graphic details of his escapades. I wrote him a final letter back to tell him that I was not comfortable thinking about or talking about the kinds of things he was telling me and that I had many more important things to do with my time.

Here is my sole purpose for sharing this with you. When we have sexual problems or sin in our life, it all begins in the mind. When we read pornographic literature, watch movies or television programs with this kind of content, it begins to take root and our mind begins to fanaticize what it would be like if acted out in real life. This kind of thinking leads to a fatal and dead end street.

If you, or someone you love, is involved in this kind of culture, DONT LET YOUR MIND GO THERE. You can believe me, it is a tool of Satan and nothing good will come from it. Because we are human, we all have sinful thoughts but here is something to keep in mind: we may not be able to keep a bird from lighting in our hair, but we sure can keep it from building a nest. The thought we should keep in mind is that God loves us and that He was willing to give us His best. EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a motivational speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034.)