The following has been adapted from material available at LivingYouth.org, which strives to address issues relevant to the teenagers and young adults of God’s Church today.
Many years ago, the first time I heard Philippians 4:8 focused upon in a sermon, I felt a twinge of discomfort. “Finally, brethren,” it reads, “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”
It’s a positive and uplifting verse, to be sure, and portions of it resonated with me. However, I recognized that I had certain interests—things I enjoyed “meditating on,” if you will—that probably didn’t fit such descriptions. Not that they were obviously terrible or filled with evil. But still, I felt a draw to some things—certain forms of entertainment, for example—that I would need to spend less time with in order to abide by Philippians 4:8.
In an odd way, in this messed-up world, there is often an allure to ugly things—things lacking proper virtue and not really of good report. I could think of stories with heroes who were really “antiheroes”—not only lacking admirable qualities but also possessing some frankly evil ones. I had to admit that it was the negative qualities that made the characters interesting or exciting. It would be one thing if the attraction were based on the opportunity to see a character overcome those qualities and become a better person, but that wasn’t it. The evil qualities were part and parcel of the “hero’s” real appeal.
Human nature wants to find an appealing quality to darkness, to the “bad guy”—and, yes, to wickedness and evil. Even if we don’t want the objects of our mental affection—songs, stories, art, what have you—to be utterly evil or dark, we too often enjoy the “flavor” added by the darker elements they possess. Were we all that God wants us to be, it would not be so. But this world trains us to want things we should not.
The Better Path
As I matured over the years, I began to see the wisdom of Philippians 4:8. The more time I spent seeking to apply the Apostle Paul’s advice, the more I began to recognize when something lacked such darker characteristics and more fully embodied the elements of virtue, purity, and praiseworthiness. To be sure, I had a lot of work to do. It’s not an easy task to train your mind to begin moving in different directions—recognizing that one path is more beneficial and ultimately more enjoyable than another is not the same thing as training our feet and legs to walk that newer path. But recognizing is a start. And as we follow Paul’s admonition and work to meditate on those things in our mind—the things that are noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy—we begin to devote ourselves more fully to them in all areas of our life.
One morning, not very long ago, I woke up earlier than usual. It was still dark outside and, seeing how I was not going back to sleep, I decided to go ahead and get up. A little later, sitting in the living room, I noticed that dawn was creeping over the horizon, so I decided to take my coffee outside to go look at it for a while. Some neurologists say that getting the light of dawn into our eyes is beneficial to the human brain, so I thought it would be nice to take advantage of the opportunity to do so.
And as I stood there, looking over my neighbor’s misty field across the street, soaking in the orange sky mingling with the blue above as the sun continued to make its presence known ahead of its arrival to begin the day, I thought to myself that I was thankful to God for the beautiful things. Because the scene truly was beautiful: the mixture of hues, silhouettes, and a touch of haze on the ground with a clear and brightening sky above. It reminded me that there are beautiful things in my life—and that God wants me to spend time meditating on them, not on the ugly things. In fact, the longer I looked at the horizon, the more I thought that wasting time on the ugly things leaves less time for the truly beautiful. And as I continued to enjoy the scene in front of me, I thought, What a bad trade it is to spend precious time meditating on the ugly and unworthy, taking time away that could be spent instead on the truly beautiful and good.
So, let us work to take Paul’s advice seriously. Our Father in Heaven longs to give us an eternal existence completely and utterly filled with the noble, the just, the pure, the lovely, the good, the virtuous, and the praiseworthy—the beautiful. And every moment spent meditating on those things is an opportunity to taste that future.