Good Morning Garden

Never be original. Find out what is usually done and copy that. Realize that you have nothing more to learn. This will destroy all danger of success.

Sneer at those who are more successful than yourself.

Tell yourself that it is now too late, and that you really did not have the proper equipment; and it will be especially helpful to keep saying that people are against you.

Never learn from experience. Keep on doing the same fool things time after time.

Never wait to hear the other side of the story. Knowing both sides will only unsettle your mind.

Use your wit destructively. Be smart at the expense of absent people.

Stand on your dignity. Never forget that you have a position to keep up.

Try to get everything cheap. Study and practice to become the perfect “chiseler.” This will build an invincible poverty complex.

…the heart of fools proclaimeth foolishness (Proverbs 12:23).

Looking honestly at our weaknesses should never be confused with being defeatist or being down on ourselves. In fact, it is the mirror opposite. It takes courage, determination and will power to face our true selves in the mirror. It also requires that we love ourselves enough to endure honesty, and that we believe in ourselves and God enough to know that with God’s help, we can overcome our weaknesses. And make no mistake, if we are to overcome our flaws and negativity in general, we will need God’s help.

Facing facts,
Z gardener

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Knock everything systematically. No matter what you hear of, deprecate it and predict the worst.

Mind everyone else’s business. This will insure your neglecting your own.

Never perform today what you can possibly postpone until tomorrow.

Leave the important things to someone else instead of seeing to them personally.

Have no organized arrangements. Trust to luck for everything.

Be a sanctimonious humbug, and when you bungle things say it is “the Lord’s will” or that the trouble is that you are too good for your surroundings.

Sit down and wait for something to turn up.

Finally, conduct your life in all respects as if there were no God.

Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish.
(Psalm 39:8)

There are clear pathways to negativity that virtually assure our failure. Treading these paths, regardless of how justified we feel in so doing, will invariably ensure a harmful outcome for us. We set the course for failure when we choose the paths of negativity, and we ourselves pave the journey to failure with the stones of our own attitude and actions.

Just as surely, when we avoid the pathways that lead to failure, we set a heading that avoids the pitfalls of negativity. And when our attitudes and actions reflect love, faith and hope, we build the highways to our success.

If we are to truly succeed, we must walk the walk of love, affirmation and peace. Then our journeys will assuredly take us to the garden that awaits in our true destination.

Paving the way with peace,
Z gardener

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Sit down quietly where you are not likely to be disturbed. Relax the body, and begin to think about yourself. Every time your thoughts wanders to something higher, bring it back gently but relentlessly.

Think about the past. Think over all the mistakes you have made, going right back to childhood. Think over all the opportunities you have missed and the time you have wasted. Especially think of all the occasions upon which you have been badly treated.

Think about your body and wonder if your age or your job or the climate isn’t beginning to tell. See if you cannot discover a pain or an ache somewhere.

Think about finances and if they are going well now, insist that this is probably too good to last.

In any case, think about yourself, that is the main point, and if you will keep this up faithfully for fifteen or twenty minutes, there can be no doubt about the result.

Seest a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope for a fool than him (Proverbs 26:12)

For, these next few days the messages will tell us how to succumb to negativity. This is not pleasant to hear, but they make the point. We all will find some of our thoughts, words and deeds addressed in these messages. This should serve as a wake up call to all of us that we have work to do if we are to overcome negativity.

Digging deep,
Z gardener

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To recognize failure intelligently is the first step toward building success.

Recognize success with thanksgiving, and build more success on that..

You can have anything in life that you really want, but you must be prepared to take the responsibilities that go with it.

God is ready the moment you are.

You really do not know John Smith; you only know the idea that you form of John Smith.

One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:6)

No one gets pleasure from recognizing their failures. It hurts and can be debilitating if not done in a healthy way. Yet, just as we learn in Lent, it is essential if we are to ensure a successful garden.

Uprooting failure,
Z gardener

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It cannot be your duty to do anything that is beyond your reach or your strength at the moment.

It cannot be your duty to do anything that sacrifices your own integrity or your own spiritual development.

It cannot be right to be hurried, or sad, or discouraged, or angry, or resentful, or antagonistic, under any circumstances.

If you have not time for prayer and meditation, you will have lots of time for sickness and trouble.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this the the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

Our duty is to rejoice each day and be glad in it. When we allow ourselves to; accept duties that ensure failure; priorities that retard our spiritual development or engage in behaviors that subject us to negativity, especially those that block us from prayer, then we are violating God’s will. As surely as the sun rises, these activities will create undesirable consequences that hurt us or others.

Z gardener

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Most people have certain sections of their lives where, for various reasons (mostly unknown to themselves), they do not wish to make any change. These places are set aside and surrounded with an aura of spurious sanctity like the sacred cows of the East, which are considered too holy to be touched. But if you really mean business about regenerating your soul and body, there must positively be no sacred cows in your life.

Nothing is truly sacred but your own Indwelling Christ and the process of His awakening.

Awake thou that sleeepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light (Ephesians 5:14).

In all likelihood, those negative behaviors most protected by us are the very ones most in need of addressing. If we are to eliminate the root cause of our problems, we must get to the roots. Most often, those roots are the ones that grow from the things we do not want to change or give up, yet which are in opposition to God’s will.

Digging deep,
Z gardener

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The moment you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, you should reject it instantly. Do not stop to say “good bye” to the error but immediately switch your attention to the presence of God. Indeed, we may say that when error presents itself to consciousness, the first five seconds are golden.

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains;

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house;

Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes(Matthew 24:15-18).

Jesus teaches this lesson in his own graphic way. The holy place is your consciousness, and the abomination of desolation is any negative thought, because a negative thought means belief in the absence of God at the point concerned.

It is impossible to forget this illustration once we have taken it in.

This bears repeating. “A negative thought means belief in the absence of God at the point concerned”. When we allow any negative thought to dwell in our consciousness, we are engaging in an act of disbelief in God. We, believers and non-believers are actively denying the existence of God when we allow negative thoughts to remain in us.

Fleeing desolation,
Z gardener

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…be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.(Romans 12:2).

This is Paul’s admonition.

Many people understand this in principle, but they fail to demonstrate because they do not carry it out logically in practice. During prayer, they carefully build up the new mental structure, but as soon as their time of prayer is over, instead of faithfully preserving that structure intact they promptly knock it down again by negative thinking. Obviously, a bricklayer could work hard in this fashion year after year without ever accomplishing anything.

If you are failing to demonstrate, it is probably due to the same cause; building followed by wrecking. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Few understand how truly destructive negative thinking is. While it is not an enjoyable subject for discussion, it is as necessary as our understanding joy. One of the reasons it is so unpleasant is because we all fall into this behavior every day. Further, when bad things happen to us or those we love, we feel justified in harboring such thoughts. However, none of this changes the undeniable truth that all negative thinking is harmful to us whether justified or not.

Peace,
Z gardener

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The principal revelation of the Jesus Christ teaching is the omnipresence and availability of god, and the belief that God not only transcends His universe but is everywhere immanent in it; that He indwells in it.

If you really believe in the existence of God you should be happy and cheerful. God has all power, and God is Good; so life must be good too.

Meet the world with a smile. You owe this to God, to your fellows, and above all, to yourself. If you go about with a face like an east wind, what can you possibly expect to attract from the world? We all know people who carry a fixed, frozen, mirthless, almost professional, smile. Such a smile is just a permanent wave in the face.

Smile, even if it takes a little effort, and keep it up until it becomes spontaneous, as it will. In the graphic language of Hollywood, register joy, and hold it!

For ye shall go out with joy. (Isaiah 55:12).

The positive health effects of joy, laughter and smiling have long been recognized in professional medical and mental health circles. Joy is the inward and outward manifestation of God’s love expressed through us. God loving people demonstrate God’s love through the sharing of joy. A true smile is the best sign to others that God’s love is alive and active in us.

Smile on,
Z gardener

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“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fall off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a man has is not that he will be damned, but that Jesus Christ will be worsted, that the things He stood for – love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men – will not win out in the end; the things He stands for look like will-o’-the-wisps. Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted.

If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience.”

Remain spiritually tenacious.

God has never given up on us. Regardless of how far we fall from grace, God will never give up on us. That is God’s promise and it has always been kept.

Tenaciously yours,
Z gardener

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