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A garden’s goal is to produce.

People don’t cultivate gardens and not expect a harvest.  That’s foolish.  It’s too much work.  I remember the back breaking summer nights I spent picking weeds.  Your life is just like a garden.  You are meant to produce.  A friend of mine, Mike Murdock, asked me once, “What is your life product?”  The purpose of your life is to produce.

A garden needs to be cultivated

I hated picking weeds but my grandmother coaxed me into helping her.  She said, “Those weeds will choke out the harvest if we don’t pick them out.”  As the garden of your life is trying to produce, there will are weeds trying to grow choking off the produce.  We entered the garden every summer evening ruthlessly in pursuit of weeds.  We all have weeds that are trying to choke out the harvest.  Be ruthless with the weeds in your life.  They are choking out your harvest. 

A garden needs boundaries

“I hate this fence.  My shorts keep getting stuck on it.” This was my constant complaint to grandma.  I never appreciated the fence until there was a lack of lettuce one summer.  I had worked tirelessly to pull the weeds.  Sweated and toiled only to notice a lack of lettuce in the fall.  I was mad!  I had worked hard, but a hole had developed in the fence.  This was an entrance for a small rabbit to get in and eat my harvest!  Your life also needs boundaries.  There are little rabbits that want to get in and eat the fruit your life is producing.  Even though I hated climbing over the fence, once I knew it’s purpose, I didn’t mind it.  Your life also needs a fence.  It’s not to keep people out, but it’s to product that which your life is producing.

Treat your leadership like a garden

Your life is precious.  Time is of the essence.  Your life is garden trying to produce.  How do you cultivate and protect the garden of your life?