Chapter 10: Inside
We live in a culture that emphasizes external things – like physical beauty, job titles, and advertising. But, reality is what is INSIDE. One of creation’s greatest mysteries is the seed. When you hold an apple seed in your hand, you’re not only holding an apple seed, you’re holding an apple tree, and future generations of apple trees. They are all resident in that seed.
The most important parts of your life are INSIDE you.
They exist in seed form. So, much of life is a matter of planting the right seeds in the soil of your life. A seed cannot produce anything unless it’s in the SOIL. Your soil is your daily life – the events you attend, the books you read, the work you do, the people you spend time with, and the habits of the heart. This is your life and your soil.
By planting the right seeds in your soil, you will find yourself entering an almost agricultural rhythm. When a seed falls into the soil, it takes on a life of its own. That seed takes over . It’s like a woman pregnant. The growing life inside her womb takes over. It calls the shots. Her whole life – her health, her moods, her activities, everything – flexes to accommodate this growing life.
It’s the same way with other seeds. For example, if you read Norman Vincent Peale’s classic book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” it will plant the seed of a positive attitude down deep in your life. And, you know what? That attitude takes over. Every
time a negative thought comes to your mind, that positive attitude growing inside you will emit a small beep in your mind. You’ll suddenly realize, “Uh oh. I need to be careful. I reject that negative thought. I gotta take care of this baby of positive thinking growing inside me.”
You have the power to destroy the seeds growing up in you.
You can destroy them. For example, a watermelon seed has enormous power. But, if you douse the ground with gasoline or other toxic substance, that watermelon seed will die. It will never produce fruit. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “What lies in front of us is a small thing compared to what within us.” So, it is critically important for leaders to spend much more time on what’s inside, than on the externals. We must always be careful to maintain internal integrity.