What are you cultivating?

“Then in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit”. Isaiah 37:30


After a season of hardship, King Hezekiah was told to return to normal farming practices. This verse was given to King Hezekiah as a promise after the Assyrian siege—a reassurance that life would return, but slowly, and in stages. Even when the famine was gone, it took time for the ground to allow normal cultivation and rhythms to produce fruit again. The soil needed to adjust to normalcy, to anticipate regular waterings and harvest. It had learned to survive in hardship and lack, and it was unnatural at first to return to the rhythms of sowing and reaping.

I have found this to be true of my home as well.

We just celebrated three years post bone marrow transplant. What a gift. However to say it has been difficult to readjust to living together as a family would be an understatement. Calling it ‘difficult’ almost feels generous—it implies progress. But for many months, we saw none. It felt like we were regressing as a family, unable to find our rhythm again. We had a new sense of striving within our relationships and it felt as if it was going to be our permanent reality.

The gratitude and joy that filled our relationships during the initial return home were replaced with anger, entitlement strife and complacency. Laughter and appreciation became resentment and irritability. The sin that lay dormant beneath the surface during deep suffering was once again brought back to the surface. And instead of being met with grace and patience, we matched one another’s sin with anger, dismay and fear. We have been appalled by one another’s self-centeredness, as if that was not our propensity in the prior 17 years of marriage. There have been times when I felt hopeless and alone. If I were to pick one word to describe the 2nd year post transplant, it would be frustration. I was frustrated with the reality of this world, Mike was frustrated with me, our kids were frustrated that life wasn’t easier now that we are all back together.

It seemed we had learned how to survive the fire, but now only embers were left, no real active crisis were present, yet we did not remember how to live in normalcy, how to taste joy in the mundane and the busy that this world had to offer us.

In my own solitude, I have been reflecting on the garden God created at the beginning of humanity. I love how God threaded this imagery into the first chapters of His word to us and carries it through the entirety of Scripture.

Genesis 2: God is the first gardener, planting Eden as the first place of shalom – harmony between God, humanity and creation. A place of beauty, thriving, provision, and peace.
Isaiah 5: God is the owner of the vineyard of Israel, cultivating and loving, even as they run wild and unkempt.
Isaiah 58: “The Lord will guide you always and you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” He promises to restore and revive flourishing.
Song of Solomon: Now the playful delight between husband and wife reflect that same harmony from Eden.
John 15: Jesus is the true vine and the Father is the vinedresser. He is cultivating and pruning, removing the harmful branches so that production and fruit are able to burst forth. Here we are told the secret of endurance and fruitfulness is to abide in the true vine.
Revelation 22: The tree of life reappears and the original garden city is restored and expanded into a new creation of even greater beauty and harmony.

I see my heavenly father doing this cultivation even within my own home over the past three years. He is removing the harmful things and stirring up the ground for deeper roots. I know he allowed the storm of cancer to pass through our story because in these storms, He is aiming to strengthen the bonds beneath the earth that tie us closer to Him. As the winds pass and scare us, he is at work, loosening the dead branches who were robbing the true branches of the necessary nutrients. In the storms, God is at work. In the famine, He is guiding our roots to go deeper down. In all of it, God is the one who does the strengthening, the pruning, the establishing.

Have you heard these familiar phrases regarding cultivation?

• Cut off toxic people for your own self-care.
• Set boundaries for your mental health.
• Honoring yourself means distancing yourself.
• Healing often requires letting go of what hurt you.
• You can love someone and still walk away.
• Normalize prioritizing yourself.

These soundbites are compelling—and sometimes there’s wisdom in rest and boundaries. But they can also be twisted by the enemy to isolate us and keep us from growth. What sounds like healing can become a disguise for division. Satan cloaks justification for factions and rejection with the language of harmony, healing, health, and honor of oneself. But you see, he knows that he gets a foothold if we do not pursue peace with one another. If he can convince us that we are “right” and they are “wrong”… that we are the victim and they are the villain, then he has space to work. He dances when we are in isolation, finding a playground for twisting our storylines, whispering the other brother or sister is malicious and intending evil. He uses soundbites and past wounds to keep us in a circle of resentment and anger to keep us from forgiveness. He is always at work within our minds to convince us to place ourselves at the center of the universe. Protect yourself. Listen to yourself. Prioritize yourself.

Scriptures Call:

• Lay down your life.
• Go to your brother.
• Open rebuke is better than hidden love.
• Unresolved conflict invites division and gives a foothold to the devil.
• Forgive.
• Pursue peace.
• Be Compassionate

But if the enemy wants a foothold, he will tell us to retreat, to withhold, to isolate, to divide. Is this not the sum of every divorce, every friendship divided, every broken family? One or both parties was convinced in their own mind that the other person is beyond repair, unfixable, stuck, unredeemable, and that they, the victim have simply had a few small lapses in judgement, but should be forgiven and those minor offenses should be overlooked.

In the tension of unmet expectations and daily friction, I’ve found comfort and challenge in the words of Gary Thomas.

“What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?… Marriage is the laboratory where spiritual transformation happens most powerfully-because no one exposes our selfishness, sharpens our character, or stretches our capacity to love like our spouse.”

When we see all relationships as opportunities for further sanctification, we are blessed with the presence of the One who will do that very good work. When we listen to the guidance of the enemy, we enthrone ourselves, believing we are protecting ourselves and our reputations, only to be found alone withered and wanting, because in doing so, we have lost the connection to the true vine. Jesus calls us to die to ourselves, to lay down our lives, and acknowledge Him as who He is, the center of the universe, the first and the last. He models the way of everlasting life by “making himself nothing.” In the greatest irony of ironies, in emptying himself, not only does he fill us, but he will be filled as well. For the joy set before him, he endured his cross. Even as I write these words, the Lord brings to mind ways in which I have withheld my presence from others. I have drank the poison of unforgiveness. I have forgotten the great love Jesus has for me and failed to extend that love to others.

Reader, I pray you will consider the cross today. Where are you withholding forgiveness or making light of your own offenses? To whom do you need to extend an invitation or a confession? Where are you drinking in bitterness and arrogance rather than the selfless better way of Christ?

Jesus, let our family desire the better way you have shown us, one of deeper roots, stronger dependence on you. Thank you for the storm and for your cultivation. Let us never resist the work you are doing within us.