When I was growing up, a common axiom that floated around quite a bit (at least in Iowa!) was "You are what you eat." I was always curious about that expression. Let's see, if I eat Oreos, then I become an Oreo? If I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then I become one? What did this axiom really mean?
Obviously, the expression "You are what you eat" was really meant to challenge people to think about what they were eating. Someone wanted all of us to understand that the foods we chose to eat determined (to a large degree) our overall health. I think this might have been the same someone who wanted us to understand that we needed to have a balance between all the food groups to be healthy. It couldn't all just be dairy, or protein, or chocolate (my wife has told me that chocolate is a food group all by itself!)! We needed balance.
For some reason, a similar axiom popped into my head last week. It was "You are what you read." In other words, what you choose to read determines your intellectual health and how you'll think. If you only read one type of communication (or from only one source of information), then you will think a lot like that one form of communication (and/or like that one source of information). For true intellectual health, we need balance. We need to read from many types of communication and from many sources of information. If we don't, our perspective gets skewed and we become unhealthy.
There's another axiom that is out there, namely "Garbage in, garbage out." That kind of applies to reading as well. If what we are reading is "garbage" then how we think will be "garbage" also.
That is why I like to have a healthy dose of Scripture every day. By reading God's Word EVERYDAY I am somewhat protected from a lot of the garbage that is out there polluting my thinking. You see, as a believer in Jesus Christ, I NEED to be reading the Bible everyday or else I'll get confused and maybe even "sick" from all the other stuff that is so easy to ingest.
You are what you read. Remember that this week.
So, what are you reading these days? Are you getting all of your food groups?
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Your post reminds me of the Biblical concept of sowing and reaping and this widely quoted aphorism:
Sow a thought, reap an action;
Sow an action, reap a habit;
Sow a habit, reap a character;
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Also Prov 23:7 (KJV) comes to mind. This verse is often quoted out of context as "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" but when we examine this Proverb in context with a modern translation, we discover this verse has to do with how materialism warps our inner being. Fascinating.
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