I have often had thoughts enter my mind...what if this or that happened?...and then found myself in that very predicament in short order. This has happened so frequently that I picked up on the pattern of the power of my thoughts. I tell you one brief example today, because a Sunday School teacher helped me to find the answer.
When I was young, I thought I had fat lips. I was embarrassed by how fat they seemed to me in comparison to other people. It was my image of myself. As I look at pictures of me as a child, I don't see it now, but back then I thought many times that I must have an African relative for me to have lips that I compared to theirs. I secretly had this unspoken thought for years, then, one day, as a young adult at college, I happened to pass a house with a young black man entering, and I thought to myself, "I wonder if I were to kiss a black man would two pair of lips that were the same size make a difference in how it felt to kiss?" An odd thought. But, that thought kept running through my mind.
Before the week was out, I was at a dance hall just yearning to dance and still was on the sidelines. I watched the girls who got asked by all guys getting to dance every dance, and I was pretty despondent. (This is what usually happened to me.) As I sat on the sidelines, a black boy came in the 'all white' establishment. He watched those girls who I knew had danced with everyone there. I watched him proceed to ask every one of them. They all turned him down. Now I was angry with those girls. I was angry that Provo residents (they probably in hind sight were not Mormon, but then, I assumed they were) were so prejudiced that they would not even so much as dance with him.
You guessed it. To me, I was his last choice, but of course I leaped at the chance to dance, and I thought to myself that I was a good example of Mormons to him because I was not prejudiced. Well, you guessed it. Since no one else would dance with him...except me, we danced the entire night and I LOVE dancing...and the pheromones of music always contribute passion in dancing. He was not a member, so I felt even more compelled to show him that in this Mormon town, we don't treat blacks like he had been treated.
Without any more details, since I had walked to the dance club, he offered to drive me home. Upon leaving, those people threw rocks at us and yelled horrible names to both of us while that man protected me. I had no clue at the time why we were being so persecuted and I wondered if this was what always happened to black people. We ran to his car and drove in silence...and when he took me home, the kissing was so passionate I cannot tell you to this day if the size of lips made a difference because that was the least thing on my mind.
Well, that was not the end of that young man in my life. But I can tell you it would have been better for me that I had not met him. After finally having the willpower to end that relationship, I wondered how it had happened that so fast after my thought, I was placed in that exact predicament.
Well today's lesson answered that question. A person read this quote by President Kimball:
"It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the devil to enter a door that is closed. He seems to have no keys for locked doors. But if a door is slightly ajar, he gets his toe in, and soon this is followed by his foot, then by his leg and his body and his head, and finally he is in all the way." https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-spencer-w-kimball/chapter-10?lang=eng
After the quote, the teacher said, "Sometimes all it takes is entertaining a thought to set the door ajar."
I was a little shocked. You see, we had just gone over the Joseph Smith translation to verify that the Spirit was the one who transported Jesus during his 40 days of fasting and Satan came to him. It was also after I had heard a talk about not entertaining time to research those things that the anti-Mormons preach against us, but to spend our time entertaining study and thoughts on what we know to be true.
I guess my reason for posting this is to help you all be ever vigilant in doing those things that keep your thoughts pure and always on the Savior. Though trite, the list is always the same: fast, pray, read the scriptures, keep the commandments, watch and listen to uplifting media, have family home evening, attend church and take the sacrament, and go to the temple. May it ever be so with my posterity. Lock your doors and throw away the key.
And if...per chance...you are human, you might have an inappropriate thought, then recognize it for what it is and do as the Savior did, and say, "Get thee hence, Satan," and shut that door again by immersing yourself in the scriptures, prayer or sacred music.
