I Only See What Is Wrong With It

You walk out and your eye goes straight to the worst thing.

Every time. Before you have decided anything, before you have taken two steps, your attention has already found the bindweed along the fence or the bed that has gone or the thing that did not make it through the winter.

And then everything after that is colored by where you started.

Here is what I want to put to you, and I would like you to actually check it rather than agree with it.

There are things out there doing well.

Not many, maybe. But there is at least one thing in that garden that is thriving, that has been thriving for a while, that needs nothing from you, and that you have not properly looked at in about a year.

You could probably name it if you stopped and thought. And the fact that you would have to stop and think is the whole of this article.

You are able to make your eye rest somewhere, and an attention that goes straight to the worst thing has never once been telling you the truth about a garden.

Let me be clear about what I am not saying, because there is a cheap version of this that would be no use to you.

I am not asking you to be positive about it. I am not going to tell you to focus on the good and the rest will follow, because that is a slogan and you are a grown woman with a real garden that really does have bindweed in it.

What I am saying is narrower and I think it is true: your eye has developed a habit, and the habit is not neutral, and it is producing a picture of that garden that is not accurate.

Think on these things

There is a verse near the end of Philippians that is a list, and the instruction attached to it is more mechanical than people notice.

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. (Philippians 4:8, King James Version)

Think on these things.

Now, the first item on that list is the one everybody skips past, and it is the one that keeps the whole verse honest. Whatsoever things are true.

True comes first. Before lovely, before good report. Which means this is not an instruction to look away from what is actually there.

You are not being asked to pretend about anything, and a verse that puts true at the head of the list has never once been an instruction to look away. Philippians 4:8 names the true things before it names the lovely ones, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a familiar verse from becoming an instruction to be cheerful.

And notice what kind of instruction it is. Think on these things. It is about where the attention gets pointed, deliberately, as an act.

It does not say feel differently about them. It does not ask for an emotion at all. It asks for a direction of attention, which is a thing a person can actually do on purpose, unlike a feeling.

You are being asked for something your attention can do rather than something your feelings must produce, and a direction of the eye has never once required a person to feel a certain way first. The Holy Spirit is the one who works with what a person can actually control, and the written word gives an instruction about thinking rather than about mood.

And there is a reason this matters for a garden specifically.

Attention is not a reporter. It does not survey the whole and hand you a fair summary. It goes where it is trained to go, and yours has been trained by two years of things needing doing, and it now finds the needing doing before anything else, every single time, faster than you can decide.

You have an eye that was trained rather than an eye that is reporting, and a habit of attention has never once been the same thing as an accurate account. The Spirit of God is the one who can redirect what a person cannot correct by trying, and the word says think on these things, which is an instruction to point rather than to feel.

The good thing is load bearing

Let me say why the thriving thing matters, because it is not decoration.

If everything out there is a failure, then the garden is a failure, and so is the gardener, and the whole enterprise is an argument nobody could win.

But if there is one thing out there doing well, then the garden is a mixed thing. Some of it is going and some of it is not, which is what every garden that has ever existed has been like.

That single plant is the entire difference between a verdict and a state of affairs.

You are holding a garden that has never once been all one thing, and one thriving plant has never once been too small to disprove a verdict about the whole. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings a person back to what is actually the case, and Philippians 4:8 begins its list with whatsoever things are true.

And here is the part I want you to catch, because it is the sharpest bit.

The thing that is doing well is doing well because of you.

You planted it, or you moved it there, or you left it alone at exactly the moment when leaving it alone was the right call. It did not arrive by accident, and it has been quietly succeeding out there the entire time your eye has been going elsewhere.

You are looking at your own work when you look at that plant, and a thing thriving in your ground has never once got there without you. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a person see their own hand in something, and the written word puts the true things first so that the good ones can be counted honestly.

Thirty seconds on the good thing

So here is the assignment, and it is timed for a reason.

Stand in the garden and look at one thing that is doing well for thirty seconds.

Pick it before you go out. You know which one. Then walk out, go to it, and look at it and nothing else for about thirty seconds.

You are able to point your attention on purpose for half a minute, and thirty seconds of looking at one thing has never once been beyond anybody. Philippians 4:8 says think on these things, which is an instruction about direction, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing beside a woman in her own garden looking at one plant.

Thirty seconds is longer than you think and that is deliberate.

For the first ten your eye will keep trying to leave. It will offer you the bed behind it, the fence, the thing beside it that is struggling. Bring it back. That is not a failure of the exercise, it is the exercise.

Somewhere after that it settles, and you will start actually seeing the thing rather than confirming that it is there. That second part is what you have not had in a year.

You are able to bring your eye back as many times as it goes, and an attention that wanders has never once meant a person could not direct it. The Holy Spirit is the one present in the bringing back, and the word gives an instruction to think on these things without ever suggesting it happens on the first attempt.

Then walk back in. Do not do any work today. This is not a way of getting you out there to weed.