In the movie What Women Want, Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) develops a telepathic ability to hear each thought, opinion, and desire that goes through every woman’s head.

 

Imagine this: Tomorrow morning you wake up and every man on the planet has developed the ability to read your mind just by being in your presence. Does the thought make you nervous? You bet it does! Especially when we consider the thoughts that roll around in our minds on a regular basis that we would never articulate to anyone! Thoughts such as:

*  I wonder if he thinks I’m attractive?

*  I wonder if he knows that I think he’s attractive?

*  I wonder what it would be like to kiss him?

*  Could he be The One?

 

And what if every woman developed this ability too? They might hear things such as:

*  She really thinks she’s something, doesn’t she?

*  How did she get a handsome guy like that?

*  I wonder if her husband would be interested in me if anything ever happened to her?

*  At least I’m not that fat!

 

Even though we can rest assured that men and women aren’t likely to develop this sensitivity anytime soon, we have an even bigger concern. God has had this ability all along. Could you, like David, be so bold as to pray such a thing as this: “Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind” (Psalm 26:2)?

 

Notice David didn’t say, “Examine my actions.” He asked God to examine what was inside of him. What about you? What’s on the inside of your heart and mind? Even women who have never had a serious relationship nor been involved in inappropriate sexual activity often have impure thoughts and longings. Regardless of our past, all of us share in this struggle.

 

But just because all women have tempting thoughts, it doesn’t mean that it is wise to indulge in them or entertain them. It’s one thing to have random sexual thoughts or inappropriate emotional longings. We are only human. God does not hold these things against us. It is another, more dangerous thing to entertain these thoughts in our minds over and over or to indulge in frequent fantasies with little regard to the nature of what is going on in our heads. Like the famous quote says,

Sow a thought, reap an action;

Sow an action, reap a habit;

Sow a habit, reap a character;

Sow a character, reap a destiny.

                          -Samuel Smiles