It All Started With Ketchup

Sitting in a fast food restaurant chain, the five of us in our family chowed down on the typical fast food variety.  Luke, my 6 year old, and I shared a ketchup.

Chris went to get more ketchup and I thought, "I hope he gets us more ketchup as well.  We could use more ketchup."

He came back from the ketchup fetching with no ketchup for us.  "Hmmm. How unthoughtful of him", I thought.

The next day, something else happened that I cannot remember at the moment that caused me to think, "That wasn't very thoughtful.  He isn't being very considerate of me lately."

The day after that, as I was scurrying around to get dinner together, he was in the other room doing work.  Again, I thought, "It would be nice if he would be thoughtful enough to help me."

So, I said to him, "I am tempted to be mad at you right now.  It seems you haven't been very thoughtful of me lately", and I gave him all three examples.

He said, "I didn't realize you needed more ketchup, I looked and it appeared you still had enough." (He had thought to look.)  "I didn't know you needed help with dinner, you know I would help you if you need it."  (He always helps when I ask and he always does the dishes afterwards to help me, it is his thing.)

He really is a very thoughtful man, my mind was just trying to convince me otherwise.  The enemy tries to plant negative seeds in our minds.  Sometimes, we plant negative seeds in our minds.  If we let them stay in our minds, if we give them voice, they start to take root.

Take no thought, saying "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?"  Matt 6:31

The point here is that when a thought comes to you, you do not have to "take" it.  You can say, "No, thank you" when it is offered to you.  You do not have to let it be planted and take root.

I was tempted to let those thoughts take root.  They could have developed into a nasty tree ripe with bitterness, resentment, and criticism.  That kind of fruit is not good for a marriage or any other relationship.  Those are bad fruits that will destroy a relationship.


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Thoughts are seeds.  We can decide if will allow negative thoughts to stay and plant bad seeds, and ultimately result in bad fruit.  On the flip side, positve thoughts yield good fruit.

A thought stays by giving it life with our words. 

The heart (mind) and the mouth are closely related.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.  Luke 6:45

We need to be cautious to evaluate our thoughts.  Do they line up with God's truth? Does it line up with what I already know?  ( I already knew my husband is thoughtful, he is a wonderful man....the thoughts I was having did not line up with truth about him.)   What kind of fruit will this thought produce if it stays?  Is it positive or negative? 

Now sometimes, our thoughts are valid and we need to address issues.  We just need to be certain to do it in the correct way.  Prayerfully.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.  Psalms 19:14

The words that come out of our mouths start as meditations in our hearts.  We want our thought or meditations to be approved of by God.  We want our thoughts to be good seeds planted that will bear fruit for the Lord. 

We need to be sure the seeds we allow to be planted in our minds are going to spring up and produce a fruit that brings life and not destruction.

I was "tempted" to be mad at Chris because of my thoughts.  It all started with ketchup.  That bad tomato almost got the best of me.  The thoughts were not even based in reality.

Thankfully, those thoughts did not take root. I did not "take" those thoughts and keep them.  It would have been destructive to our relationship to let those thoughts stay.  The fruit produced would have been rotten and corrosive.

What kind of seeds are you allowing to be planted in your mind?  What kind of fruit will those thoughts produce?  Let's take an inventory and throw out the seeds that will produce bad fruit.  Let's throw out those rotten tomatoes!  And let's keep and plant seeds that will produce good, beautiful fruit.