Justification

Isn't it "funny" how we justify things?
We justify watching a show with foul language and sex in it because it's really a crime-solving show, not a show about sex. And the language just makes it realistic.
We justify not reading the Bible because we really need those minutes in the morning to do the dishes or straighten the living room before work. And after all, we've read it several years in a row now. It's not going to hurt to skip a year.
We justify not praying before every meal because we don't want to offend the people around us in the breakroom at work, or we just don't think of it as we do our million and two things during breakfast to get our day started.
We justify not saying anything to our co-workers about their language, even though it offends us, because we don't want to offend them or to look like we think we're better than they are.
We justify not sharing our faith more because everyone thinks that just because we're a Christian we think we're going to heaven and know all the answers and that we think they don't know anything.
We justify putting up with some "friends" on facebook who use "OMG" or post pictures that aren't necessarily what we like to see because we're hoping that just by being facebook friends, maybe they'll see us as a good influence and maybe we can rub off on them instead of just saying, "I'm not going to put up with it. I didn't know you that well in high school anyway."

I've been thinking a lot about things like that. About what I allow in my house, what I put up with at work without saying anything. Today was really hard for me. One of the first co-workers who walked in this morning cussed twice in one sentence because they had pranked his office while he was off yesterday since he's a newbie. Then, he messed up the office of the guy he thought it was first and bragged about how he had changed the guy's computer desktop to a picture of a baby flipping a bird. I pointed out that it was rude, and he thought about how a customer might see it so then he changed it to a rainbow joking that the guy was "gay." I said something about how that wasn't funny, either, and that the guy was engaged to a girl. He called me a homophobe. My day went down from there with so many of my co-workers using bad language around me. I've asked one or two of them to at least tone it down when they're close to me, but it still seems to just get worse everyday. What I really hate, though, is that the more I hear it, the more it just appears in my thoughts when something bad happens or things don't go as I wanted them, too. And that makes me mad. I work so hard to be pure and clean and not use language that would offend God, but if it's in my head, then it's just as bad as if it had come out of my mouth, according to the Bible.
So, I'm making it a goal in my life this year to try harder to stop letting so much filth into my life. I might pare down my facebook friends. I will hopefully step up and ask the co-workers to please watch their language around me. I will try to not let things slide by so much on what I let into my home through the television and movies. I want to be more like Christ and less like the world. And the only one who can make that happen, is me.