Education Gems

Keeping the weeds out of your relationships

You know how it goes!
You decide to plant a garden, clear the ground, bring in new soil, add some compost, plant the seedlings. If you can, you connect it to an automatic sprinkling system and then you sit back and expect it all to happen. In a few weeks you’ll be reaping your broccoli, beans and butternuts.
Wrong!
It’s most likely you’ll be reaping weeds and more weeds and you’re wondering what happened to the original seedlings you put in.

This is the analogy Paul Tripp uses in today’s New Morning’s Merciesdevotional. He goes on to say:
So it is with relationships. Once a relationship is planted, weeds quickly sprout. Weeds of conflict, control, bitterness, un-forgiveness, anger, selfishness, pride, greed, jealousy, impatience, unkindness and self-righteousness grow and choke the life out of the relationship. Daily attention is needed because every person in a relationship brings something dangerous and destructive into that relationship; something that is antisocial at its core. The Bible names this thing sin. As long as sin lives in us, it has the power to wreak havoc on our relationships, so we cannot neglect the daily nurture that they need. 
A good relationship is a good relationship because the people in the relationship never quit working on the relationship. 

So, keep the weeds out of your garden. Your family garden, your marriage garden, your school garden, your friends garden.
Paul Tripp goes on to say: remember also that you bring something else in your relationships which is that we are heirs of the grace of life. It’s this grace that motivates us and empowers us to be able to keep striving and keep attending to the hard work this often entails.
If you are a student, keep the weeds out of your garden of ‘fellow students’; the way you communicate and build each other up. You are co heirs!
If you are a parent or teacher, keep the weeds out of your home and classroom gardens. Maintain and build positive relationships with the next generation, nurture and guide them. You also are co-heirs!

M Plug, Principal