"From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."
Another advantage to using our "yes's" as building blocks of our character is that it helps us keep our hearts pure. I used to be in the computer business, and one of the most famous cliches in the industry is, "Garbage In, Garbage Out". Our hearts work the same way.
Medical science knows this, but only thinks of it in terms of food and drink. Heart disease kills more Americans than anything else, and diet gets the blame. "We Are What We Eat", right?
But I think that a more important cause of heart disease (and a whole lot of other miserable human conditions) comes from what we allow into our character. This type of heart food is more influential to our overall health and well being than health science will ever understand.
Healthy heart foods include: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control, that which is honorable and worthy of praise, courage, perseverance, a heart of service, generosity, a willingness to believe in people, a desire to help others grow and succeed, mercy, discipline and hope.
Unhealthy heart foods are things like: jealousy, prejudice, fear, bitterness, anger, self centeredness, cowardice, revenge, greed, pessimism, fault finding, criticism, being judgemental toward others, depression and pessimism, unforgiveness and hatred.
The lists above are by no means complete, but I think each of us knows intuitively what is good heart food and what is not. And someone may notice that many of the things listed above are not actions, but results. Bitterness or prejudice may be the result of something someone else has done to us, not something we willingly participate in. I understand that life may set bad food before us. but it's our choice - our responsibility - to eat the right things. Nobody else can make that choice for us.
Many people embrace bad food, and draw energy from it. Anger and jealousy are great sources of short term energy.. But their long term effects are negative, and more often than not the short term impact of the energy these things produce are destructive as well. This is not good food.
It is hard for us to keep our hearts pure and unpolluted with the junk food so readily available in life. But it is essential if we are to live happy, healthy lives and be all that we are created to be. The man with a strong character, set on purpose as a result of seeking that which is universally Pure, Right, True and Good has the upper hand in straining out the pollution and eating only good food. It's not always easy, but the benefits to living this way are worth the effort.