Bad-Investment-Relationships are sometimes ok

Last week I wrote about what we're leaving in our wake. As we leave a wake behind us we sow seeds. Like a wake ripples onward and outward, a seed is planted and has potential to grow. 

We have tremendous potential to sow seeds of goodness, kindness, peace, encouragement and generosity in our interactions with people. 

Jesus tells a story of a farmer who sowed seed. It seems the farmer scattered the seed on many ground-types. Almost carelessly, one might say! Jesus says that the seed fell on rocky ground, on shallow soil, on ground with thorns, on ground that birds had easy access to eat the seed, and finally on good soil that would receive the seed so it would grow. In our day of optimization and efficiency we would not dream of being so reckless with our seed. We would leave any ground that wasn't absolutely suitable and only sow seed where we knew it would grow. That's good economics. Why sow seed where it won't give a return? This mentality of efficiency creeps into relationships and human interactions. Why put any effort, or sow any seed of goodness into someone I won't meet again, someone I don't get on with, someone very different to me, someone who has hurt me. This thinking results in a very self-centered person, only investing into relationships that will be beneficial or valuable. "Relational Profits" become predictable and calculable. Sterile. Clynical. Boring. 

There is something marvelous about not analyzing the soil as you are about to scatter your humor, your generosity, your kind word, your eye-contact, your "how are you?", your "is there any way I can help?"It's free. It's Godly!

"He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." 
- Matt 5:45

It's frustrating when people don't reciprocate in kindness or gentleness. It's even more hurtful when it feels as though the seed we sowed is wasted! But our responsibility is in the sowing - not the growing. Once the seed has left my hand my responsibility for it leaves with it. That is a freeing thought. The story Jesus tells explains that the yield returned from the seed falling in the good soil alone was at best one hundred-fold, and at least thirty-fold. In that day a ten-fold return was considered a good crop.  

Now, there is a difference between SOWING, and PLANTING. 
Planting is an activity focused both on the seed and the soil. The soil is analyzed, preparations are made for the planting of the seed, and once that seed is planted it is watered, nurtured, pruned, replanted when required. Much care, over a sustained period happens with planting. Fruit is enjoyed from a planting. 

We sow goodness into our temporary relationships, butwe plant goodness into our permanent, long-term relationships. Family, close friends, partners for life. No doubt this is should be seen most in parenting. We invest, selflessly, over an extended period, through many seasons into our children. We watch their environment, we water, we feed, we prune, we protect, we replant when they outgrow their surroundings. And we enjoy the fruit of their growth and maturity. 

Proverbs 29:17
Discipline your son, and he will give you peace;
he will bring delight to your soul.

We plant into the people we covenant with: our marriage partner. Sometimes people come into our lives who God joins to us in a deeply spiritual way - where a covenantal relationship develops. A relationship that will endure even when those partners are separated through space or circumstance. We plant into these relationships. 

We freely sow goodness into the more transient relationships and daily interactions. Clients at the new firm, the waiter at the restaurant, the check-out assistant at the local grocer, and the beggar on the street corner, and we do it without looking for a return on investment. 

So, what are we planting in our permanent relationships? And what are we sowing into our temporary relationships? Let us be deliberate, extravagant, conscientious, wildly generous in both our sowing and our planting. You never know what will grow, and the fun is the sowing.

justdonlon

afterthought:
Sometimes we find ourselves caught in the wake of someone else’s destructive lifestyle. Or we’ve positioned ourselves where someone else can plant seeds of hurt, pain, and regret in our lives. Its important to be aware that there are times when we need to forcibly end a relationship like that. If a relationship is harmful, if others warn you about a relationship, if you feel trapped in it, if it causes you to do things you regret – have no mercy. Dig out the root of that bad seed, get help, get over that wave and run. Its impossible to sow good seed when you are filled with someone else’s bad seed. Bad company corrupts good character. That means character was good to start off with, and the bad company corrupted it.