One of my favorite hobbies is gardening. I find satisfaction in planting seeds and small plants and watching them grow and bloom. I like using different heights, colors and textures in my flowerbed. Before I can plant in the spring, I have to remove the plants that died over the winter and remove any weeds from the root, so they don't grow back. Then, everything gets planted, watered in well, and the ground gets covered with a good layer of mulch.
Our life is like a garden. Each thought produces something, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Positive thoughts grow into the flowers that are admired for their beauty and put off fragrance to be enjoyed by those who are near. Negative thoughts grow into the weeds that choke out the blooming plants, draining them of the nutrients they need to flourish. The flowers draw others to your flowerbed, while weeds cause the opposite effect. Our words work the same way. They can be full of negativity and life draining to those around us, or they can be life giving.
If you were to tell me the kind of thoughts that you spend your time pondering over, I could tell you what kind of words you speak. If you spend a lot of your time thinking negative thoughts, I would guess that you spend a lot of time talking about problems to those closest to you. On the flip side, if you spend a lot of time thinking about the positives in your life, I would guess that you talk about the good in your life. That doesn't mean we never have problems and we can't share them with loved ones, we should, but if that is all you ever talk about, your relationships may struggle.
I have been through a lot of hardships in life and I have been guilty of talking about my negative circumstances in excess to friends and family. It wasn't long before my friends quit calling me and family asked me to please, "change the record". I knew I needed to break the cycle, but I just didn't know-how. I was bombarded with negative thoughts from the moment I woke up to the time I went to bed. I needed a change.
So how did I make the shift happen? I found that spending time meditating in God's word brought change to my thought life. Every time a negative thought tried to come at me I would find a scripture to replace it. One of the types of thoughts that would bombard me were attacks on my identity. I decided to study in Ephesians, focusing on chapters one through three. They talk about who you are in your new identity in Christ. I took key scriptures and wrote them on a huge mirror so I could read them out loud to myself every morning. Before long these thoughts came less and less. The more I was able to build myself up, I went from being a drain to those around me to a source of hope and encouragement.
If you apply these principles, it won’t be long until the garden of your mind is blooming with fragrant flowers that bring not just joy to your life, but to those around you as well. “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” Philippians 4:8.