Good Morning Garden

There is an instructive legend of the Middle Ages. It seems that a certain citizen was arrested by one of the barons and shut up in a dungeon by a ferocious looking jailer who carried a great key. The door of his cell shut with a bang. He lay in the dark dungeon for twenty years. Each day the big door would be opened with a great creaking; water and bread would be thrust in and the door closed again.

After twenty years the prisoner decided that he wanted to die but he did not want to commit suicide, so the next day when the jailer came he would attack him, and the jailer would then kill him. In preparation he thought he should examine the door, so he turned the handle, and to his amazement the door opened. He found that there was no lock. He groped along the corridor and felt his way upstairs. At the top of the stairs two soldiers where chatting, and they made no attempt to stop him. He crossed the great yard. There was an armed guard on the drawbridge but paid no attention to him, and he walked out a free man. He went home unmolested. He had been a captive, not of stone and iron, but of false belief. He had only thought he was locked in.

Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me (Psalm 142:7).

False perceptions imprison us more than most of the real constraints we face each day. Those false perceptions are ingrained in us from an early age by our culture, family and friends. The most common ones are caused by our limited knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live. For instance, man thought for centuries that the world was flat and the earth was the center of the universe. As our knowledge increased, these false perceptions were revealed and the New World was discovered.

Leaping in faith,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

What you concentrate upon you bring into your life. Many people fail to concentrate successfully because they think that concentration means will power. They suppose that the harder they press the faster they get through. But that is quite wrong.

Think of the photographic process. The secret of a clear picture lies in focus. You focus your camera lens steadily for the necessary length of time. Suppose I want to photograph a vase of flowers. I place them in front of the camera and keep them there. But suppose that after a few moments I snatch away the vase and hold a book in front of the camera, and then snatch that away, and hold up a chair, and then put the flowers back for a few moments. You know what will happen to my photograph. It will be a crazy blur. Is not that what people do to their minds when they cannot keep their thoughts concentrated for any length of time? They think health for a few minutes and then they think sickness or fear. They think prosperity and then they think depression. Is it any wonder that man is so apt to demonstrate the “marred image”?

It is always good to make a practical experiment, so I advise you to take a single problem in your life—and just change your mind concerning your problem and keep it changed for a month, and you will be astonished at the results. If you really do keep your thought changed you will not have to wait a month for results.

…He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved (Matthew 24:13).

We might be surprised at how passive our concentration is most of the time. Many times we allow our focus to be determined by external occurrences instead of internal direction. The crisis of the moment, the rude guy in traffic or the client coming to town tend to direct our focus more than an affirmative determination on our part to drive that upon which we will dwell. It is so easy to let our focus to drift along without exerting the effort to direct our concentration and without maintaining the mental discipline to control our focus. Yet, even as difficult as it is to concentrate affirmatively, when we do so, miraculous things begin to happen. We will find that we can change our minds about almost anything that is bothering us or holding us back. We will also find another key to living in the gardens God created for us.

Seeking focus,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

The key to life is to build in the mental equivalents of what you want, and to expunge the equivalents of what you do not want. You build in the mental equivalents by thinking with clearness or definiteness, and interest. Remember clarity and interest; those are the two poles. If you want to be healthy, happy, prosperous, doing a constructive work, having a continuous understanding of God, you think, feel, and get interested in these ends. What we call “feeling” in connection with thought is really interest. Ninety-nine times in a hundred the reason why Christians do not demonstrate is that they lack feeling in their desires or prayers.

How are you going to expunge the wrong mental equivalents? Suppose you have a mental equivalent of resentment, or of unemployment, or of criticism, or of not understanding God. The only way to expunge a wrong mental equivalent is to supply the opposite. The right thought automatically expunges the wrong thought. If you say: “I am not going to think resentment any more,” what are you thinking about except resentment? The key to the management of your thinking, and therefore, the key to the management of your destiny, is to substitute an affirmative thought for a negative thought.

The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me….(Psalm 138:8).

Mental discipline is one of the toughest assignments we receive from the Almighty. It requires infinitely more effort, thought and control than physical discipline. It is much easier to abstain from bad behavior than to refrain from bad thoughts. But, remember, as within so also without. Those who effectively manage their thoughts will find that same discipline manifesting itself in their lives. They will discover that the key to living in the garden God created for us is to create that garden within first, then they can live in that garden in the physical world regardless of the circumstances.

Seeking discipline,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

There is one thing that means more to us than all the other things in the world, and that is our search for God and the understanding of His nature. Our aim is to learn the practice of the presence of God. We practice the presence of God by seeing Him everywhere, in all things and in all people.

Some years ago I coined the phrase “mental equivalent.” For anything that you want in your life—a healthy body, a satisfactory vocation, friends, opportunities, and above all the understanding of God—you must furnish a mental equivalent. Supply yourself with a mental equivalent, and the thing must come to you. This expression “mental equivalent” is borrowed from physics and chemistry. We speak of the mechanical equivalent of one kind of energy in another kind of energy. They have to find out how much coal will be needed to produce so much electricity, and so on. In like manner there is a mental equivalent of every object or occurrence on the physical plane.

The secret of successful living is to build up the mental equivalent that you want; and to get rid of, to expunge, the mental equivalent that you do not want.

I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways (Psalm 119:15).

This truth is one of the keys to unlocking our Gardens and living in the presence of God. When we arm ourselves with the mental equivalent of God’s laws, then we are creating the first step to their becoming a reality in our physical plane. So we must strengthen the good ones and weaken the bad ones until they are gone. When all our mental equivalents are tuned to God and immune to Satan, then we will see God in all things and will be living in God’s presence.

Seeking good and God,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

When you set out to solve a problem by means of prayer you should take all the ordinary normal steps in addition. Do not simply pray and then sit down and wait for something dramatic to happen. For instance, if you are praying for a position, you should pray for it as well as you know how each day, and then go out and visit agencies or prospective employers, write applications, or insert advertisements in suitable periodicals.

If you want a healing, treat about it in whatever way you usually find to be best and, in addition, take whatever material steps seem to be appropriate.

If your business is not prospering, have a checkup to discovery if you are managing it efficiently. If you find weak points, as you almost certainly will, you must correct them forthwith.

We certainly cannot expect to go on breaking the laws of the plane on which we live, and expect prayer to compensate for this foolishness.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might… (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

Action is faith put to work. Faith without works is dry. If we are to experience all of God’s power in our lives, we must do the work that is dictated by our faith.

At work,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 29:2).

God is bigger than any problem.
God in you is greater than any difficulty that you have to meet.
God cares for you more than it is possible for any human being to realize.
God can help you in proportion to the degree in which you worship Him. You worship God by really putting your trust in Him instead of in outer conditions, or in fear, or in depression, or in seeming dangers, and so forth.
You worship God by recognizing His presence everywhere, in all people and conditions that you meet; and by praying regularly.
You pray well when you pray with joy.

Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord (Psalm 105:3).

When we recognize and worship God in all things with prayer that is charged with feeling, joy and the expectation of good, then all problems yield, all difficulties are overcome and God’s unlimited power will arise to ensure our best good.

Praying with joy, expecting victory,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Read Matthew 7:24-27.

Therefore whosoever heareth these saying of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock (Matthew 7:24).

One of the oldest symbols for the human soul is that of a building, sometimes a dwelling house, and sometimes a temple. The first thing that has to be done by the builder of a house is to select a sound foundation. On the shifting sands of the desert it is impossible to build anything at all, and so when the desert dweller intends to put up a permanent structure he looks about for a rock. Now the Rock is one of the Bible terms for the Christ, and the implication is very obvious. Christ is the one and only foundation upon which we can build the temple of the regenerated soul with safety. As long as we are depending upon something less than that Rock—upon will power, upon so-called material security, upon the good will of others, or upon our own personal resources—we are building upon sand, and great will be our fall.

What a comfort it is to know that our eternal welfare does not depend on our human capabilities. To know that we have a sure foundation of hope, peace and fulfillment here and forever with God. Yet many of us continue to build our hopes on our abilities, will and resources. We succumb to human nature, pride or other human weaknesses to avoid living according to God’s will and plan. Whe we do this, we are building a castle made of sand on a foundation of sand. And as the lyricist wrote, “Castles made of sand slip into the sea, eventually”.

Building wisely,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes
(Matthew 7:28-29).

It is always so. The message of Jesus Christ is utterly revolutionary, for it turns our gaze from the outside to the inside, and from man and his works to God.

He taught as one having authority. The greatest glory of the Spiritual Basis is that you begin to know. When you have obtained the smallest demonstration by means of prayer, you have experienced something that never leaves you. You have the witness of Truth within yourself, and this is the only authority worth having.

One of the most difficult challenges for living a spiritual life is that we must reverse our human perceptions of cause and effect. Human nature seeks to find external causes for that which shapes our lives. In fact, it is what happens internally that causes our lives to be what they are. Our inner thoughts, feelings and perceptions drive our words and deeds which are the things that shape the reality of our outer existence.

As within, so without
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Read Matthew 7:21-23.

We are all willing to do God’s will sometimes and in some things, but until there is a complete dedication of one’s whole self, there cannot be a complete demonstration. “There is no home for the soul in which there dwells the shadow of an untruth,” said George Meredith.

Never is it more true than in the life of the soul that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We must not allow any consideration whatever, any institution, any organization, any book, or any man or woman, to come between us and our direct seeking for God. Centers, churches, schools, all fill a useful purpose in providing the physical framework for the distribution of right knowledge, but the actual work must be done by the individual.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven (Matthew 7:21).

Each of us face different challenges when it comes to doing God’s will. For some, it is hardest to “drop our nets” and follow God’s will to do the big things like embarking on a great, yet seemingly impossible mission for the greater good. For others, the routine and seemingly ordinary challenges of being there for our family and kids, giving them the support, guidance and love they need each day is harder. And for many of us, determining God’s will and discerning the difference between God’s will and our own desires is the hardest part of all. The best way to determine if we are doing God’s will is to look at our own lives and honestly figure our how we are doing.

Seeking to see and hear,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Read Matthew 7:15-20.

If man really were left without a simple practical test of religious truth, he would assuredly be in a sad plight; but happily this is not the case. Jesus, the most profound, and at the same time the most simple and practical teacher the world has ever known, has provided for this need, and has given us a universally applicable test for truth. It is as simple and direct as the acid test for gold. It is the simple question—Does the truth work in our lives?

This test is so staggeringly simple that most clever people have passed it over. Truth heals the body, purifies the soul, reforms the sinner, solve difficulties, pacifies strife. There is no such thing as undemonstrated understanding. If you wish to know how you really stand spiritually, look about you at your environment, beginning with the body. There can be nothing in the soul that is not demonstrated sooner or later in the outer, and there can be nothing in the outer that does not find some correspondence in the inner. By their fruits ye shall know them (Matthew 7:20).

Many of us say we believe certain things, yet our actions do not demonstrate that belief. When we truly believe something, it will be reflected in our lives. Want to know the truth about what we really believe? Just look at our lives and our behavior, then the truth will be self evident. If we want to change our lives and our world we must first change our thoughts and beliefs. When we have done that, we can live in the Eden God created for us here, and we can live forever in heaven with God when this life ends.

Working within,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »