How are we purified and sanctified?

 The other morning I had an image come in to my mind. It looked like a "Y", in that there was one path that split in to two different directions. My thought was that thoughts come in to our mind on that first path. We may or may not have any control over these kinds of thoughts. They often just show up. But there is no sin until the choice point at the intersection of the path with the two diverging paths. The path to the left represents that path to follow Satan. It will be the path of least resistance. It will feel like you are on a boat and the current will just naturally take you down that path to the left. The thoughts will just continue to feed on each other and propel you down the swift, dark current of negative belief.

The other path takes much more effort. It's as if you have to stop the boat and choose to step out of it. There is no current to easily take you down this path to the right. You have to work hard to find the thoughts of truth that will counter the original thought. But if you stay on the path, you will find it brings peace and comfort and relief from the original thought.

As I shared this thought with my friend, I had another idea.

What if the original thought isn't from outside of us at all? What if it is inside of us? What if it is the process Father in Heaven uses to purify and sanctify our bodies? What if the original thought is a wrong belief we have stored in our body and it's trying to come up so we can reexamine it and "purify" it with truth and then "sanctify" it with our choice to believe the truth? 

We may see these "thoughts" as the adversary trying to tempt us and pull us down, but what if they are thoughts that are embedded in our souls that must come out and be changed (purified)? We must look at them anew and decide if they are thoughts we want to believe and hold on to or change and let go of. We must decide what new truths must take their place.

One of the reasons this made sense to me, is that people often speak in terms of the adversary attacking "good" people and leaving "wicked" people alone. Well...what about me? I don't get attacked like some people I know. Am I not "good" enough for Satan to want to bother? Or, because of the great blessing I had to be raised by faithful parents who taught me much truth...perhaps I have fewer "impure" thoughts that need to be changed? And once correct truth is  a part of me, then Satan's temptations have no hold on me and land on me like an annoying fly that I just brush away without a thought. 

Now, I'm not saying I don't get tempted. But what if they temptation comes only after my "nature" is revealed. If he can't read our thoughts, then maybe I give him power by the words I choose to speak that are impure and not in harmony with God's will for me. Then he is the one to get me to choose the path to the left.

What this theory does is get us to look at our negative thoughts as opportunities to become purified through yielding to the Holy Ghost who will take us on the path to the right where we can let the truth become our natural state, thus becoming like Jesus Christ.