I’ve never been much of a gardener, and I’m very grateful for those men and women who offer their services to take care of and maintain the flower beds in my yard. There was a time, when I tried my hand at doing it myself, but honestly it was the weeding that ended my gardening career before it began. I didn’t – and still don’t – have the patience for it. It’s so much easier to pay someone else to do it for me!

I’m grateful for these folks because I am blessed to live in the results of their hard work. I can sit on my deck and admire their efforts and the beauty that results from flowers and bushes that are allowed to grow unfettered. With spring getting ready to turn into summer, everything is in full bloom, and it got me thinking about seeds and weeds and the difference between a plant seed and a weed seed. There are several I’ve thought of that also connect to our thought lives and our dreams, which is important to share, because while we can pay people to weed our gardens, we’re the ones who must do the weed work in our minds and emotions.

First of all, weeds appear unwanted. I’ve never seen weed seeds for sale, I’ve never heard of a weed farm, never visited a celebrated weed garden. No one is trying to have weeds. They just show up. It’s a lot like negative thoughts, worries and anxieties. None of us are trying to have those things in our lives, they just come. Bad news, like weeds are a part of all of our lives. Bad news breeds negative emotions, which end up feeding negative thoughts.

Secondly, weeds tend to grow a lot more rapidly than bushes, plants, fruits and veggies. Not only do they show up unwanted and unannounced, but they move in and take over quickly. Anxious thoughts and real-life problems can do the same. They arrive and then they scream for our attention. They drown out the good and the positive and attempt to use up all our bandwidth focusing on their drama, real or perceived.

Thirdly, if we leave our gardens and flower beds unattended, the weeds will just naturally take over. Whatever is in their DNA seems to outgrow everything desirable around them, choking off the supply of nutrients and water in the soil. It’s not much different than problems. Crises come and demand all the oxygen in a room. They demand our time, money, emotions, energy and brain power – and NOW! They’re not good about leaving room for much else.

Fourth, if we want good results from our planting, we’re going to have to simultaneously commit to not just the initial work of preparing the ground and planting, but also cultivating. This means watering and weeding out the stuff we don’t want. We’re signing on for double work when we decide to plant – if we want a good harvest, that is.

Our thought life and emotions are not any different. If we want to have a sunny disposition, it is something we’ll have to work at. It doesn’t just come because we desire it, it comes because we choose it. Some days, with some crises, we have to force ourselves to see the good in a bad situation. It’s the price of a healthy mind. It’s work. It is pulling weeds in the hot August sun. Not fun, but needful to get the result we really want.

Fifth, we’re going to have to invest in plant food. Plants will grow healthier and stronger if we give them a little chemical help. Scientists have given us Miracle-Gro and high-tech fertilizer, some of which can increase or decrease the pH values of our specific soil. Some even add nutrients that our soil doesn’t have enough of naturally.

We’re going to have to invest in our minds in just the same way. We all know the sayings: attitude determines altitude, focus determines future, positive minds produce positive things, etc. There are a lot of those sayings, because they’ve been proven true for millennia. We have been given the power to choose our thoughts for a reason. It’s especially needful in times of crisis, where worry and anxiety come to crowd out any hope of good. We must determine to make the investment to pull aside and feed our minds on things that will help us overcome and not be overcome.

From his prison cell in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote these words to the church at Phillipi: “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things,” (Phil 4:8). That group of early believers was facing persecution from Rome, persecution from their own people and even conflict from within the fledgling church. Paul’s advice two thousand years ago is as useful today as it was back then. We may not face the persecutions of antiquity, but life still has a way of coming at us hard and fast.

Lastly, weeds, unlike plants, fruits and veggies produce no fruit. Weeds have no end product at all. The main usefulness that they have comes when they’re uprooted. Then they can become mulch to help the soil provide what the desired plants need to grow. They finally become useful when they’re dead. That’s about it.

Like dealing with weeds, we can learn to find use in the problems that we face. Problems can act as a whetstone. Necessity is the mother of invention for a reason. People who have their backs to the wall, but feed the seed of their mind with good things find ways to overcome the things that they face. Consider Hellen Keller, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Andrea Bocelli, Claude Monet, all blind. How about Marlee Matlin, Ludwig von Beethoven, Lou Ferrigno, Howard Hughes, Thomas Edison, all deaf. Or maybe Greg Abbott, Chuck Graham, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Stephen Hawking, Joni Eareckson Tada, all paralytics of varying degrees.

I called my previous post Turn Problems Into Opportunities, because I’m surrounded by stories of people like these I’ve just mentioned who did exactly that. The easy path for them was to accept limitations, accept loss and be defined by it. Instead, they chose to feed seeds of possibility, achievement and overcoming. Rather than lives defined by limits, they redefined their lives in spite of them.

In his book, Life Without Limits, Nick Vujicic, a man born with no limbs describes how as a teen, in his determination to not be a burden to his family, he learned to wake, shower, toilet, brush his teeth and get dressed on his own. He’s got over 650 videos on YouTube, under his channel Life Without Limbs, and there are numerous other videos from his appearances in TED talks, 60 Minutes, Oprah and more.

We can feed the seeds of our dreams, or we can feed the weeds that life throws at us. Whether we purposely choose or not, we will always be feeding something. If we leave our gardens unattended, the weeds will take over. If we allow our thoughts and emotions to carry us through life, the weeds will take over there too.

There is no such thing as fate, luck or fortune. Ecclesiastes 9:11 says “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” In other words, we’re all going to get hit in the mouth by life, one way or the other, and we’re all going to have to choose our response. Weeds are going to happen. We don’t know where they will come from and they are going to insist on taking over our minds, emotions, our hopes and dreams. Sometimes, they will look and feel like they are winning.

But we have been given the gift of choice. We have tools. We have fertilizer, weed killer, water and soil. We can be more stubborn and more determined than the weeds of our lives. We can face adversity, choose our thoughts, determine our paths and take the first step forward. In my experience, this usually makes the weeds mad. They try to come back; they change their tactics – they attempt to negotiate.

Refuse to give in. In his excellent book, As A Man Thinketh, James Allen says “only man manacles man.” We limit our own selves by what we allow in our hearts and minds. You can always know what you have allowed there by what comes out via your words. As a man (or woman) thinks, so he or she is.

Let’s choose to feed the seeds we want grown in our mental gardens and uproot the weeds. Let’s choose to do the work and make the effort. Let’s not let whatever comes come, whatever grows grow. This is not who we were created to be. This is not who we are determined to be.

Feed your seed, never your weed.