What are you thinking right now?
What occupies your mind most of the time?
What are the thoughts in your mind that drive you to do something?
Whatever your answer is, you can’t deny the fact that your thoughts shape your reality.
Your mind as a garden
As a plant could not exist without a seed, so is our action without our thoughts. Perhaps, there are a few exemptions to that, but the truth remains:
Our thoughts could affect how we live our lives.
Our mind is like a vacant lot. You can either cultivate it with good seed and let it produce beautiful flowers and delicious fruits OR you can simply neglect that lot and let it produce weeds, wild grass, and undesirable plants.
Either way, whether you cultivate or neglect your vacant lot, it will produce plants. Whether you like it or not, you will produce something.
The question now is this:
“Will it be good plants or bad plants?”
Are you sowing good seeds or bad seeds?
You know brethren, it is so easy to go through life and plant the seeds of doubt, fear, resentment, frustration, bitterness, blame, depression, and other negative stuff in your garden.
However, we need to realize brethren, that when our mind is filled with negative thoughts, IT PUSHES OUT THE POSITIVE THOUGHTS. The more negative thoughts that you have, the lesser space is left for the positive ones.
You can’t simply say, “I will find another vacant lot” or “I will just expand my lot.” No, you are given only one lot and you can’t go beyond your boundary.
Whatever you do with your lot, that’s what you are going to reap.
Galatians 6:7 tells us:
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
If you sow good thoughts, then you will also reap good thoughts.
If you reap bad thoughts, then you will reap bad thoughts.
Thus, it is no wonder that a lot of people today feel unmotivated, uninspired, and hopeless.
Why? Because they have planted negative seeds of thought in their minds.
They focus more on the problem rather than the solution.
They focus more on the things that they don’t have, rather than the things that they have.
Choose your thoughts
Friends, the Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 30:19:
“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore CHOOSE LIFE, that both you and your descendants may live.”
For years, we have seen this verse to simply mean that we must follow God instead of Satan. However, this verse also tells us one important truth about our lives and it is this:
We choose our thoughts.
Though we might not always have the control of what goes into our mind, we always have the choice which thoughts will stay.
Deuteronomy 30:19 is telling us that we have the power to choose life:
- To choose happiness instead of sadness;
- To find the positive in every negative situation;
- To choose faith rather than worry and doubt;
- To choose love rather than hate; and
- To choose peace rather than getting even with our enemies.
When a co-worker got a promotion you worked so hard for, you can either be bitter or be happy for that person. You can either question God or trust Him that He has something way better than that promotion.
When you’re stuck in traffic, you can either curse the drivers around you, the government, the traffic light, and the traffic enforcer or you can simply be patient, meditate upon God’s goodness in your life, or reflect on how blessed you are right now – still breathing, could still walk, talk, in good health, and have money in your wallet.
When a person hurts you with words – he has insulted you and humiliated you.
You can either fight back and say meaner and nastier words or you can take the high road, simply move on, and let God fight your battles for you.
This post originally appeared on BecomingChristians.com and was republished with permission. The article was written by Joshua Infantado.
Joshua’s Outpost is a source for men to find encouragement to be bold in their faith and walk with Jesus Christ.
