The Mind's Garden

“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”  ― James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

That's a pretty good quote, right there!  It is a great visual to compare your mind to a garden.  This past weekend, the weather was as lovely as it has ever been at the first of September.  I worked up the garden in the side yard, turning over the hay ground cover and weeds with a shovel and working it in the ground.  When I was done the seed bed was void of any weeds as you can see in the photo below.

This is part of that instant gratification thing about farming that really revs up my engine.  You get in a field in the morning that has weeds waist high and after plowing and then hitting it at a diagonal, in the afternoon when you pull out of the field, the weeds are gone.  The field is beautiful.  You feel like you accomplished something.

As the quote above so eloquently says, the land can be intelligently cultivated or weeds can run wild, choking out growth of productive crops like my poor New England Sugar Pie Pumpkins below.  Darn weeds just grow.  I don't plant them, but they grow nonetheless.  Funny how that happens.

You see, the land is going to bring forth a bountiful crop, regardless.  It can be a crop of good stuff or it can be a bumper crop of weeds.  That beautiful seedbed above, if left alone will yield a stunning, mind-numbing bumper crop of weeds.  Oh, the goats will enjoy it when I pull the weeds like I did below and toss them over the fence, but that's not what we're trying to raise here on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

Here's the other thing.  Those weeds left alone will produce after their kind.  That is a Biblical mandate from Genesis 1:11.  Except we don't want the weeds to produce in our garden, building a perpetual seed bank in our garden soil that guarantees hours and hours of back-breaking labor.  We want order and production of wholesome foods for our family.

Getting back to the quote, that's why the garden is such an appropriate comparison to the human mind.  Our minds are like that clean seed bed that we can either sow good seed into or we can leave it fallow and let all sorts of things grow in it.  It is amazing what sort of bad seed gets blown into our minds.  Seeds of doubt and fear. Of low self-worth and regret and pessimism.  Of envy and bitterness and sorrow. Those seeds can choke out the good seed that is struggling to extend its leaves to the sunlight, but is shaded out, stunted and finally dies, becoming the detritus beneath the healthy weeds in our minds.  Before long, the garden of your mind that was once fertile and clean has now become a toxic field that is unproductive and results in total crop failure.

But there is hope.  The remedy is not easy, but there is hope.  It takes back-breaking, diligent work. One must cultivate the mind, pulling out the weeds of negative thought and turning them under before they go to seed, replacing them with positive thoughts.  Tending your mind's garden is a daily task.  Many times weeding my mind's garden seems to be a fruitless pursuit with the weeds growing as fast as I can pull them out.  Of course, there is a lot of bad seed being scattered today and our minds must be carefully tended, especially with the good seed from His Word, ensuring an eternal harvest:

Philippians 4:8 King James Version (KJV)

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.