Germinate or Terminate

While the title says it all, you won't want to miss the rest of this post - today by Dave Trotta

If I handed you some seeds and asked you to plant them in your garden, what would you do?  I’m pretty confident the first thing you would do is ask what type of seeds they were and what type of plant they produced.  What if I then told you the seeds would produce a poisonous berry plant, and if digested, the berries would wreak havoc on your nervous system, cause severe pain, and possibly lead to death?

Would you accept the seeds and plant them in your garden?  Of course not!  To do so would be putting yourself and your family at risk.  Instead, you would most likely tell me and my seeds to take a hike.

Let’s apply that principle to our spiritual lives.  For example, did you know that thoughts are like seeds too?  They will produce a harvest of behavior in our lives if we allow them to take root in our hearts.  Good thoughts will produce good behavior, while evil thoughts will produce evil behavior.

Knowing that, doesn’t it make sense to be just as selective on what thoughts we allow to occupy our minds?

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, God gave us guidelines on what type of thoughts we should dwell on.  Philippians 4:8 says “Finally, brothers and sisters, 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.”

Before you accept a thought, ask yourself - do I want the behavior this thought represents to be reproduced in my life?  If the answer is yes, mediate on the thought and allow it to germinate in your heart to produce Christ-like behavior.  If the answer is no, then immediately terminate the thought before it has a chance to go any farther.  As you go through your day, choose your thoughts wisely and ask yourself - germinate or terminate?