Even after I stopped Drinking I had a problem with my Thinking. A lot of it is garbage. A point God brought home to me in an interesting way recently. Sober Drunks have to guard their minds and emotions because that is where most of the trouble starts, in the mind and emotions.

This little story illustrates this quite well.

I took my little Beagle, Girl Dog for a walk recently, she always either wants to forge ahead or drag behind, anyway we were walking along and I was letting her smell and sniff and investigate.

Beatles have the second-best sense of smell of all dog's, with the exception of the world renowned Bloodhound. since I'm aware of this, I let her experience life through her strongest sense, the sense of smell.

This is actually no problem to me, it helps me learn to be patient and I kind of enjoy how excited she gets at some bush or rock, trying to figure out what dog or other animal has been there.

This was actually working out just fine until I realized she was trying to eat something that had fallen out of someone's garbage!

I pulled her away from it and said, "I buy you expensive dog treats and dog food and you would rather eat garbage!" At just that moment God spoke to me in that quiet voice I hear with my heart if I'll just listen.

"I provide the very best for you, and all too often you prefer to eat garbage!" I knew immediately God was not talking about the food I eat, he was talking about the thoughts I think.

God has provided us the very best thoughts. We find them throughout the Bible. Especially the book of Proverbs, the book of Psalms, the Beatitudes, passages in the epistles. These are beautiful constructive thoughts and from them we can learn beautiful constructive ways to think.

It is not for lack of a better alternative that I allow garbage on the brain to occupy my thoughts. It is ingrained behavior I need to root out.

Next time I'm tempted with stinking thinking I hope I remember my Beagle and the garbage.

I hope I measure whatever I think against Paul's epistle to the Philippian's 4:8 "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."

That is so much better than a garbage sandwich!