Cultivating

I had a rotten gardening year this summer. I planted tomatoes and green peppers in my tiny little garden, but never got much. A few tomatoes, but the peppers never came to anything. Of course, we are in a new home, and I have to re-learn what can grow and where it can grow. I already have ideas about where to plant next year, but this year, my freezer is left bereft of summer vegetables.

Growing things takes care and cultivation (and, apparently, better soil than what I planted in this year). What is true in the natural world is also true in the relational world. Friendships are not something that just happen. You have to cultivate the relationship and care for it. You have to work at it. Sometimes the "seed" that is planted doesn't take, and other times it blossoms into a full and fruitful plant. But we have to work at it.

What's true in human friendships is even truer in that friendship with God that I was writing about yesterday. God is faithful; we know that from Scripture and from our experience. He waits on us, and longs to have a friendship with us. But he will not force his way into our lives. We have to cultivate that friendship. As I mentioned yesterday, there seem to be many in churches who may have accepted Jesus as Savior, but who haven't done anything since that moment to make him their friend or to become his friend. They show up in church, sit and patiently listen to the sermon (most of the time without nodding off), they sing the songs and say the prayers, and then they go home and what happened in that hour or so makes little to no difference.

I knew a man many years ago who was active in his church in the sense that he showed up for business meetings and for worship. He often had an opinion about how things ought to go in the church, but his actions and attitudes in business were so different and often not very Christian at all. When asked about it, he said preachers should stay out of business matters because they just don't understand. Maybe so, but what about inviting Jesus into the business? Sometimes the seed just doesn't take root.

Cultivating friendship with God doesn't happen by walking in a building or sitting in a pew (or chair). It doesn't happen by listening to Christian radio or singing along with the band. In the Christian tradition, there are particular practices that, throughout the centuries, have been proved to help cultivate that friendship. John Wesley called them "works of piety," and he listed six. The first is reading, meditating on and studying the Scriptures. Nothing can substitute for allowing God's word to penetrate deeply into your life. If all we get of the Bible is what the pastor reads on Sunday morning or the brief verse at the top of a devotional book, we will find our friendship strained. When you want to really know someone, you have to share their dreams, ideas, hopes and character. All of those things about God we learn from his word, the Bible.

Next, Wesley lists prayer—talking with God. Then fasting—doing without something so as to spend additional time with God. Regularly attending worship—not just when it's convenient. (Wesley himself often went to worship multiple times during the week!) Healthy living—because our body and our spirit is connected. I've been convicted about this in the last few weeks and have been trying to make some changes in diet and lifestyle to be healthier—pray for me! And then, finally, sharing our faith with others—something a very small percentage of Christians do on any kind of a regular basis. (Only half of Christians asked by LifeWay Research have ever invited anyone else to come to church with them, let along invite someone to follow Jesus.)

If you want results, you have to cultivate—in a garden or in a friendship. What will you do today to cultivate a deeper friendship with God?