Relationships Will Grow As You Nurture Them

10 Jan Relationships Will Grow As You Nurture Them

Vegetables will grow as you nurture them.

Being from the rich farm country of northern Indiana, I love the soil. When I was growing up, the soil where we lived – to my child’s eyes – seemed to be so rich that when our family wanted a garden, all we had to do was dig up the soil and throw the seeds out on the ground! The next morning, we would come out, and the garden would be up and growing. Two days later we would be picking tomatoes and pulling carrots. We grew ears of corn so large that our family of eight could all eat off of one ear at the same time (well… a slight exaggeration, perhaps).

In Margie’s and my early years of marriage, after I graduated from seminary in Dallas, we lived in Phoenix, Portland, and then Atlanta. In Phoenix it was too hot and dry to grow a good garden. In Portland it was too cold and wet. When we got to Atlanta, I was determined to have a garden. The soil in Atlanta is red clay and very acidic. So I talked to some people who knew about soil preparation. Following their advice, I tilled into the ground a pile of compost half the size of Pike’s Peak. Then, to neutralize the acid in the soil, I tilled in enough lime to dust the state of Rhode Island. Finally, I planted the corn, beans, tomatoes, and zucchini and sat back to wait for harvest day.

As the beans came up, the rabbits held a convention in our backyard and served our bean sprouts for the main course one night. We never again saw any evidence of having planted beans. Then, the raccoons plucked the corn the instant it developed any moisture in the kernels. The tomato plants grew gloriously to about two feet high, developed a profusion of brilliant yellow flowers . . . and fell over dead. Cutworms. We got some powder to get rid of the cutworms, and the two remaining plants began to develop actual tomatoes. They grew to about the size of a peach, turned a delightful light pink, split open, and died. Still too much acid in the soil. We never ate a tomato from that garden.

The only vegetable we were able to harvest was zucchini—ten of them. I don’t even like zucchini, but I was able to grow it. We had bad luck with rabbits, raccoons and cut worms. But we were onto the right idea. We just gave up too soon. Having a good garden can be a lot of work, and there were people in Atlanta who had put in the work and reaped the reward.

We spent about one hundred twenty dollars on the garden—composting, tilling, adding lime, more tilling, planting seeds and seedlings, watering, etc. That figured out to about twelve dollars a zucchini. You can buy a zucchini for less – a lot less. In fact, I learned that if you know someone with a good garden, they can grow zucchini too, and will give you more than you’d ever want even if you like it. (In a lifestyle magazine, I read the warning: “Danger! Keep your car doors locked! It’s zucchini season!”)

That ended my gardening career for decades, until I learned more about how to nurture a garden along.

Relationships will grow as you nurture them

Just as a garden takes careful nurturing to grow and be healthy, so do personal relationships.

God has created us so that we only “get” from relationships by “giving” to them. Scripture is full of principles to help and guide us.

• Ephesians 5 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her (vs. 25). So, we give to relationships, not just with a wife – but in all relationships.
• Luke 6:31 says, “Do to others as you would have others do to you” (NIV). That is one of the most powerful sentences ever uttered by human tongue. It would transform relationships overnight if followed.
• Matthew 22:39 says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Similarly, Romans 13:10 says, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” If we love others as we love our self, we set the stage for rich relationships.

These verses tell us that we must give to relationships. As we do, those relationships flourish and bear fruit, just as a well-tended garden.

American poet Henry W. Longfellow wrote eloquently of this reality:

Kind hearts are the garden,
Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the flowers,
Kind deeds are the fruits.

Take care of your garden
And keep out the weeds,
Fill it with sunshine,
Kind words, and kind deeds.

If you blow it with your garden, you just end up with twelve-dollar zucchinis and a good story to tell. If you blow it with your spouse or your kids or your friends, the price can be devastating.

Tend your relationships with love… giving to them. In God’s design, relationships will only grow as you nurture them.

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