Good Morning Garden

It is my prayer today that each of us will be filled with gratitude, compassion, charity and empathy.
And that we will experience all of the joy, hope, peace, gladness and love that God would have us know.
It is also my prayer that all these blessings will abide with us and within us each day.

Listed below are the things that I thank and praise God for every day. It is my prayer that they will be a blessing to each of you, and that each of you will have a blessed, happy and safe Thanksgiving.

I am thankful and praise God:

For His blessings and protection;
For God’s existence, for revealing Himself to us and for His presence with us;
For God’s love, grace and forgiveness;
For God’s Son who created us, became Jesus, was crucified and resurrected to save us;
For the Holy Spirit Jesus left in us to counsel, guide and advocate for us.

I am thankful and praise God:

For our lives here below and all God’s earthly blessing, miracles, intercessions and protections;
For Pam and I, our love for each other, our marriage and bond, and the Us;
For our precious angels Jordan and Chance;
For the special people and spirits they are;
For the love and life we have together;
For the time and space God has given us here together;
For the time God will give here together and together forever with Him;

I am thankful and praise God:

For all our family and friends;
For our health, our home and all our material blessings;
For our church, its members and leadership;
For our employees and our business, for our partners and our network;
For our clients and our benefactors

And, I am thankful and praise God that I have the privilege to live the life given to me, in the Eden God created for me.

The peace of the Lord be with you.

Z gardener

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When you give your mental assent to any idea, good or bad, you associate yourself with that idea and you incorporate it into your consciousness—to the extent that you realize it. When you read a passage of Scripture you will, if you assent to it mentally, incorporate it into your life to that extent.

This law, of course, works the other way too. If when you hear or read of some piece of injustice or cruelty, you approve it mentally by thinking that “it serves him right,” you are associating yourself with that deed, and making it a part of your own life, even though you do not speak a word. It is the mental assent that counts.

Give your assent only to Truth.

For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity….So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God…. (Romans 7:22, 23, 25).

It is said that a person who can control their thoughts will control their speech and thereby will control their experience. That could not be more true. All that we are and all that we experience begins with our thoughts. These thoughts become feelings and then will manifest themselves in our lives. However, mental assent is fully realized when accompanied by feeling and interest. So, giving mental assent is the first step. We will all harbor thoughts that are bad at some time. The key is to reject those thoughts immediately and refuse to invest them with feeling or actions. When such thoughts come to us, we could use the same phrase that Jesus used. Simply say, “Get thee behind me Satan”, and put your mind on something positive. Each time the thought returns, repeat the process. Soon, we will find the discipline to avoid such thoughts almost entirely.

Assenting to truth,
Z gardener

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When you apply a certain word to God, it must bear the same essential meaning as it does when you apply it to man—otherwise it has no meaning at all. When you say that God is Love or Intelligence, or that He is Just, these words must mean substantially what they mean when applied to human beings. The love of God must be essentially the same that we know as the love of the mother for her children, or the love of the artist for his creation, purified and increased to infinity, of course.

The truth is that God is Love and Intelligence; and that He works with perfect wisdom and perfect justice to all, at all times, in the ordinary and correct meaning of these words.

…God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is Love (1 John 4:8).
Good and upright is the Lord… (Psalm 25:8).

Although there are many things in the Bible that may be hard to understand, these words have no symbolism or hidden meaning. They are plain, simple and beautiful truths. While we may have difficulty working through this or that challenge or problem that confronts us, these truths remain inviolate. We must let no hardship or misfortune separate us from these simple truths. If we light our lives with these truths, no darkness can take us from from love and protections.

Unified with the truth,
Z gardener

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A good housekeeper sees to it that dust and dirt do not accumulate in nooks and corners and on shelves. Periodically, the house is gone over and given a through cleaning. Too often in our spiritual lives, we allow negative things to accumulate in the corners of our minds. We tackle the obvious problems as they come along, but allow the small difficulties to pile up in the corners.

For instance, if we are faced with a problem of health or finance, we get to work on that immediately, but if, on the other hand, someone has injured us, instead of handling the incident spiritually at the time, we tuck it away and perhaps pack in a little resentment along with it. Such problems should be dealt with as they arise. If someone has injured you, forgive him now, and be done with it. Take care of the other difficulties in like manner.

Be a good housekeeper. Clean out every nook and corner—and God will make you worthy of greater accomplishments in the future.

And he said unto him, Well done, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over then cities (Luke 19:17)

Just think; if every hurt we had experienced was erased form our hearts, if every injustice, betrayal or insult were wiped from our memories, if by some miracle we forgot all the times we were wronged, mistreated or maligned. That would be a miracle, right?

Sweeping clean today,
Z gardener

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Volumes have been written on the secret of happiness, but I like the simple old story that has been told so often.

In the old days, there was a king who was so miserable and unhappy that he called together all of his soothsayers, magicians, and other court advisers to find a remedy. They tried all sorts of methods to rouse the king out of his deep despair— but alas, to no avail. Finally, one of them suggested that a search be made for the happiest man in the kingdom, for it was thought that if the king could put on the man’s undershirt, he would become happy too. In due course, the happiest man in the kingdom was found. But, of course, he had never even owned an undershirt. His happiness sprang from within.

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

Our search for happiness begins and ends within us. God created us with everything we need to be happy, fulfilled and at peace. God did not fill creation with our sources of joy, instead God filled us with them. Things, places, position or status will never make anyone happy. Freedom from want or fear won’t do the trick either. The world is full of wealthy, successful and powerful people who are unhappy, empty and unfulfilled.

Z gardener

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People sometimes say, “ I believe firmly in the spiritual teaching, and I have done so for years, but I have never been able to make it work—isn’t that strange?” And sometimes they say this with quite an air of triumph.

Such people remind me of a man who used to boast that he had an ailment that no one could heal. He had successfully defied every school of healing and had emerged triumphantly still in possession of his affliction. As it happens, his wife did heal him later on by prayer alone, but she was a patient and persevering woman. That man’s wife probably points the way to the overcoming of such illogicality. The key to success lies in just the qualities that she obviously had; patience combined with a gentle and unhurried expectation of success.

The patient whom she healed is not a rare specimen, nor is he unknown to any one of us. We are all likely to encounter him under our own hat at any moment!

I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works…(Revelation 2:19).

Patience and a gentle and unhurried expectation of success are lacking in most of us. The world pushes for instant gratification, aggressive action, immediate results and the assumption that success only results from our direct action. However, true success is only assured when we turn to God in patience and confidence. It is when we drain out the self and its aggressive assumptions that patience and expectation replace hurried-ness and doubt. Even those who believe in God will have problems demonstrating if they do not expect success and are patient enough for it to happen in God’s way and according to God’s timetable. The wise old gardener plants a seed and then waits expectantly until its time has come to sprout. The impetuous youngster plants the same and watches impatiently each day for the sprout. The child may lose their expectation and even their confidence in the sprout long before it is due. The old gardener goes about his business with confidence until the time is right and then welcomes the new sprout with a smile. If we cultivate our gardens as wise gardeners, we will live in a state of quiet, patient and confident expectation of God’s grace and our gardens will flourish.

In expectation,
Z gardener

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If you have explored some of the back waters within a few miles of the ocean you will know how much difference tidal water makes. Here you come upon a stagnant pool, partly covered with weeds and slime, an unpleasant place to be near. Not far away is another pool but this is filled with clean, salt-smelling sea water, and the growing things around it are pleasant and wholesome. The difference is that in one case the living ocean water pours in twice a day charged with vitality, and then flows out again carrying away anything stale or lifeless. It is this circulation of life that makes the difference between the two pools.

When the tide is out, we sometimes see a boat stranded, unable to move, but we know that this condition is only temporary because the tide always comes back and refloats the boat. As long as you keep up your daily visit with God, your soul is open to tidal water, and even if you should seemingly be left high and dry for a period, it is only a question of time before the living ocean will float you off once more.

Keep your soul flooded with the tidal water of eternal life and …nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).

Just as we must nourish our bodies each day with food and water, we must nourish our souls and spirits. What is it with which we feed our spirits.

Spiritually full,
Z gardener

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No matter what problem you may have to face today, there is a solution, because you have nothing to deal with but your own thoughts. As you know, you have the power to select and control your thoughts, difficult though it may be at times to do so. As long as you think that your destiny is in the hands of other people, the situation is hopeless.

Remind yourself constantly that you have nothing to deal with but your own thoughts. Write it down where you will see it often. Have it on your desk. Hang it in your bedroom. Write it in your pocketbook. Write it on your soul. It will transform your life. It will lead you out of the land of Egypt and out of the House of Bondage. It will bring you to God.

I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies (Psalm 119:59).

Yes, there are a multitude of problems in each of our lives that may appear to have no solution. These problems could be seen as rational reasons to feel hopeless and that hopelessness would bind us to fear, anxiety or despair. But God has told us not to feel this way, and that if we turn to God, we can overcome the problems we face. When we control our thoughts and turn them to God, we are not alone alone, and no longer dependent on our limited human ability. When we have true faith in God, we are empowered to break the yoke of fear and rise above our problems. We then receive the strength and mental discipline we need to control our thoughts.

Think God,
Z gardener

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