AKIN TO SINS OF OMISSION ARE "THOUGHT SINS." we learn from one of the proverbs: "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." [Proverbs 23:7]

Thoughts Shape Our Lives

A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. On this theme Henry Van Dyke gave us the following verse:

Thoughts Are Things
I hold it true that thoughts are things;
They're endowed with bodies and breath and wings;
And that we send them forth to fill
The world with good results, or ill.
That which we call our secret thought
Speeds forth to earth's remotest spot,
Leaving its blessings or its woes
Like tracks behind it as it goes.

We build our future, thought by thought,
For good or ill, yet know it not.
Yet, so the universe was wrought.
Thought is another name for fate;
Choose, then, thy destiny and wait.
For love brings love and hate brings hate.

Not only does a person become what he thinks, but often he comes to look like it. If he worships the God of War, hard lines tend to develop on his countenance. If he worships the God of Lust, dissipation will mark his features. If he worships the God of Peace and Truth, serenity will crown his visage. A thoughtful poet gave us this:

A human face I love to view
And trace the passions of the soul;
On it the spirit writes anew
Each thought and feeling on a scroll.
There the mind its evil doings tells,
And there its noblest deeds do speak;
Just as the ringing of the bells
Proclaims a knell or wedding feast.
—Author unknown

Inescapably we reap what we sow. If a farmer wants to raise wheat he must sow wheat, if he wishes fruit he must plant fruit trees, and so with any other crop. The principle is equally binding in the mental and spiritual spheres, as James Allen has expressed it in his well-known book, As a Man Thinketh. By President Spencer W. Kimball