Back To Home Page To Archives - Spring of Life - H. Roger Bothwell Outer Talk and Inner Thoughts While teaching a class in Contemporary Instructional Models I came across a marvelous sentence in our Best Practices textbook. The authors wrote, "Outer speech gradually becomes inner thought." If we can get children to verbalize an idea and repeat it, it becomes a part of their information base. This doesn't just work with children. The more we talk about something the more we believe what we are saying. We can even come to believe something we know is false if we only say it often enough. How very important it is to do our best to always speak the truth. The more times we can repeat a favorite poem or verse of Scripture the more it becomes part of our pattern of thought. David certainly understood modern pedagogy when he wrote in Psalm 119, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word." And just how do we hide God's word in our hearts? We do so by declaring with our lips. The more we talk of God's goodness the better our life becomes. Unfortunately the reverse is true. The more we complain and grouse about things the worse they get. If we trash talk we have trash thoughts. If we speak of good things our life bears the fruit of good things. I'm Roger Bothwell and my address is roger.bothwell@verizon.net or 151 Old Farm Rd. Leominster, MA 01453. Thank you for your support of our faith ministry. Past devotionals can be accessed at Archives