Good Morning Garden

When your knees are knocking together, and you do not know which way to turn – think of God and His goodness.

When prosperity seems out of the question – give thanks for God’s abundance.

When you want peace of mind – dwell upon the Presence of God.

When your health is under par – speak the healing Word.

When you need inspiration – browse through the Bible.

When the situation seems to need a miracle – remember that nothing is too difficult for God, and the He is performing miracles every day.

I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee (Joshua 1:5).

When we center our thoughts, wills, consciousness, spirits and feelings on God, all else falls into place. Whether expressing gratitude, looking for help, facing the insurmountable or just getting through a big job, we find our surety and protection in communion with God. Whatever our needs or fears, God can and will provide for our best good. Sometimes we may have to endure that which we dislike, but God will always provide that which we need if we just ensure that our lives revolve around our relationship with God. In communion with God, our lives become the garden we lost so long ago, but is now made available to us again through our Lord, Jesus.

Leaning on the Lord,
Stan

Read Full Post »

The Bible tells us that God can heal us, that He can deliver us from our destructions, that He lifts up the weak, that He leads and guides us. But just how much can God do? Well, God can do almost anything. That may sound strange to those who have been taught that with God all things are possible. But there are some things that God cannot do, and it is fortunate for us that this is true.

God is a God of love and rules by principle, and because this is so, He cannot change His nature. He cannot break divine law. He cannot bring disease, or suffering, or lack.

He is always the loving Father, ready to hear and answer prayer.

How much can God do? He can bring heaven here and now – not by breaking the law, which is impossible to God – but by fulfilling it.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law (Psalm 119:18).

As this writer and his son hiked the Appalachian wilderness last week, our eyes were opened to see how much God can do. In the most literal sense God delivered us from our destructions, lifted us up when we were we weak, led and guided us when we lost our way, And in the process, God brought us heaven here and now. God opened our eyes, hearts, souls and minds to to behold many wondrous things in the garden created for us. And upon homecoming, reacquainted us with the beautiful garden to which we returned enlightened, encouraged and emboldened.

God can,
Stan

Read Full Post »

In the gold rush days, prospectors went out in the mountains in search of the yellow metal. Often the task was long and arduous with little to show for days of struggle and privation. But when a find was made, the prospector would stake his claim so that others would know that that particular discovery belonged to him. Of course, some claims turned out to be shallow veins of ore and worth little, while other claims eventually made their owners fabulously wealthy.

In metaphysics, we often speak of claiming our good, and it is one of the surest ways of bringing the good we desire into our lives. If we want health, then we have to claim every day that divine Life brings well-being to every part of our body. If we want prosperity, then we claim every day that God is the giver of every good gift, ready to supply our every need.

Whatever it is we wish to bring into our life, we stake our claim to it.

Of course, we often claim negative things for ourselves without fully realizing it. Every time we say, “My cold,” “My headache,” “My indigestion,” we are claiming those things for ourselves. What one claims for himself he will eventually bring into his life.

Affirm your divine kinship. All that the Father hath is ours – if we will stake our claim to it.

…It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32).

It is neither boastful nor proud to claim God’s love and the kingdom we are promised. It does require that we believe in God’s promise and that we act as if we believe it. Even when the day is dark and when our strength and spirits are down, if we put our faith to work in practice each day, then we can expect and claim all God’s goodness in our lives.

Staking the claim on joy,
Z gardener

Author’s note: This week the author and his son will be staking our claim to joy in God’s garden as we hike the Appalachian Trail. You will be in our prayers each day until we resume the Good Morning Garden next Monday. Please keep us in your prayers until then.

Peace,
Z

Read Full Post »

Behind every problem or difficulty lies the Truth of Being. This means that in spite of the appearance, you must believe that divine Mind is already healing the situation. Jesus said that when you pray, believe that you have received. Often we are so close to a problem that, spiritually speaking, we accept the cloudy day as a permanent state of climate, forgetting that the sunshine of divine Love and Power has never ceased to shine, although obscured for the moment.

In prayer we remind ourselves again that, no matter how bleak or overcast the picture may be, we believe that in divine Mind there is nothing but good and therefore only good can express itself in these circumstances. The important thing is to raise your consciousness above the level where the difficulty seems to be, and put God there instead.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43).

We know that the sun still shines even when it is raining on us. We can be just as sure that God’s love shines on our lives even when we are in the midst of the storm. Even when our hearts are broken, birds still sing, children still laugh and our family and friends still love us.

Singing, laughing and loving,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Success consists in the overcoming of difficulties. All men and women who have made a success of any kind have done so by overcoming difficulties. There was a time when laying a telegraph line from New York to Boston presented many difficulties. Then there was a time when doing that was easy, but laying the Atlantic cable presented difficulties. Later on, marine cable laying became a routine business, but radio across the ocean presented problems that for a time were insuperable.

If you have a personal disability that seems to keep you from success, do not accept it as such, but capitalize on it and use it as the instrument for your success. H. G. Wells had to give up a dull underpaid job because of ill health, so he stayed at home and wrote successful books and became a world-known author instead. Edison was stone deaf and decided that this would enable him to concentrate better on his inventions. Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child, very shortsighted and nervous. However, he worked hard to develop his body and became, as we know, a strong husky open-air man and big game hunter.

The owner of a fashionable dress business in London was the wife of a struggling clerk, who was stricken with tuberculosis. She had never been in business, and had no training, and found herself having to support a husband and two children. She started with nothing but good taste in clothes and a belief in prayer.

… To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7).

It is human nature to avoid difficulty and to view any disability as a flaw or a barrier to our dreams. Yet, it is our spiritual nature that gives us true understanding of hardship’s value and of the benefits gained by overcoming that which we lack. It is our spiritual self that grows to new proportions when we overcome. It is our spiritual self that seeks the road less traveled instead of viewing life through the prism of disability. And, it is the spirit in us that pushes us to achieve great things by overcoming our challenges.

Embracing all blessings,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

We all believe that the love of God is invincible. We all believe that His intelligence, His knowledge, and His power are infinite. We all believe that God cares for us to a degree beyond imagining, and that each one of us is equally precious in His sight. Yet, in many cases healing and harmony do not follow from this knowledge. Why is this?

In more cases it is because we have forgotten that these qualities have to be embodied in ourselves before they can appear in our lives. To know of them as existing in God is not sufficient. We must be seeking to express them in our personal lives before they can do anything for us.

The only way to know God is to seek to express Him in our lives.

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord … to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night (Psalm 92:1-2).

It has been the author’s experience that many of our prayers are for things that would be bad for us if they were granted. In those cases a loving God would say no to our request. In other cases, that pain from which we are seeking relief is actually being sent to us for our best good and to make us change a dangerous or hurtful path we have taken. Again, the answer to our prayer for relief would be no.

Keeping the faith,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

One is on the Spiritual Basis or he is not, for there is no half-way house in this.

You are on the Spiritual Basis:

If you definitely give all power to God, in the most literal, practical, and matter-of-fact sense of the phrase.

If you really believe that prayer can do anything.

If you really believe that your happiness and well-being are vitally important in the eyes of God.

If you realize whatever ideas and beliefs you accept must be expressed in your surroundings, and in all your relationships and activities.

If you try to see the Presence of God everywhere.

If, in short, you understand that you are in a mental universe, that things are thoughts, and that one’s life history is fundamentally the expression of his belief about God.

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you (James 4:8)

If we live on the spiritual basis, we walk with God on life’s path directed by the creator of the universe. We walk in prayer with certainty, clarity, strength, communion, safety, wellness, hope and confidence. Brothers and sisters, except that we live on the spiritual basis, we wander lost, confused, sick, hurt, alone in danger and in trouble. So, let us recommit today that we will live, think, act and feel as spiritual creatures in communion with a loving God who cares about us. There now, isn’t that better.

In spirit,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Prayer is always the solution. No matter what kind of difficulty may be facing you, no matter how complicated your problem may seem – prayer can solve it. Of course you will also take whatever practical steps seem to be indicated, and if you do not know what steps to take, prayer will show you. Prayer is constantly bringing about the seemingly impossible, and there is no conceivable problem that has not at some time been solved by prayer.

When we remember that God really is omnipotent, untrammeled by what we call time or space or matter, or the vagaries of human nature, it is easy to see that there can be no limit to the power of prayer. You can pray about a problem and solve it at any stage, but of course, the earlier you tackle it the easier will your work be.

… The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16).

The bigger the problem we face, the greater the power of prayer to resolve it. Many of us are facing challenges that seem insurmountable, impossible to cope with, much less resolve. Yet the truth is that God can and will give us what we need to turn these challenges into blessings. How, we may ask, can such pain, anguish, fear and trepidation be turned into a blessing? The answer is through fervent prayer. When we turn to the all powerful God for our answers, for our direction and for our deliverance, we accept our inability and limitations.

Swapping fear for fruit through prayer,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Expect more from you prayers. The power of your prayer depends upon the amount of faith that you yourself have in it. To pray in the spirit that “even if this prayer does not do any good at least it cannot do any harm,” is not, really, to pray at all.

Have enough faith in the love of God to believe that a short heartfelt prayer is just as good as a long one. Too long a session of prayer usually means the in your heart you really doubt the love of God, and think that a great deal of effort and toil will be necessary to move Him. Pray quietly and sincerely for a reasonable time, and then leave the matter, expecting success.

O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou has done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth (Isaiah 25:1).

Prayer without feeling and conviction is of no more value than shouting at a rock. Simply adding more words, increasing the frequency or the volume of our prayers is vanity, not faith. God knows what we need before we know to ask for it. The key to successful prayer is to ask calmly and fervently for the help we need if it is God’s will, and then accept that the answer will come and that it will be for our best good. Then, go about living in the garden with hope and confidence that God loves us and is control.

Accepting the answer,
Stan

Read Full Post »

Read Matthew 6:16-23.

If your consciousness is right, that is, if you have a good understanding of God as the loving Source of your boundless supply, you will always be able to demonstrate whatever money or goods you may require. You cannot want for anything when once you truly realize that in divine Mind demand and supply are one. And, on the contrary, until you do realize this, you never will be really safe from want. In the long run, no one can retain what does not belong to him by right of consciousness, nor be deprived of that which is truly his by the same supreme title.

If you are looking to outer, passing, mutable things for either happiness or security, you are not putting God first. If you are putting God first in your life, you will not find yourself laboring under undue anxiety about anything, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21).

Take a minute to think about where we spend our money and what we spend it on. Are we spending our resources to support a lifestyle of big homes, fancy cars and other material things? Or, are we expending our resources on things which lift us up spiritually and help those around us. And for those of us who are investing in material things, how is it working out for us. Are we under undue anxiety each day in work we don’t enjoy, in an environment that is bad for us, in order to support a lifestyle that is not good for us or our families? For those of us who are investing our resources in things that help others, provide reasonable comfort for us and draws us closer to God, what are the fruits of those decisions. Are we having our needs, and those of others met in a life that is free of undue stress and fear?

Taking inventory,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »