Rock Gardening: The Impossible Person

Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. — 1 Corinthians 3:7

Who is the seemingly impossible person in your life whom you must interact with on a regular basis? There’s someone like that in everyone’s life. Perhaps we work with them, serve with them, gave birth to them, married them, or go to school with them. These people are often socially challenged or just plain self-centered and stubborn. We make various attempts to develop a harmonious relationship, pleading with God to enable us to love this person with His love. Nothing works. Even if we managed to sow a single seed of love, we sense that a hard heart, disinterest, maybe pain, or even fear will keep that seed from growing or even taking root. But just as plants do grow in a rock garden, we may be surprised by what blossoms in a person’s hardened heart.

Rock gardens are a great solution to sloping land or other problem areas in a yard. The design and installation take a lot of work, but once they’re established, rock gardens are usually very low maintenance. These gardens can also be a great location for more delicate plants that might be overshadowed in a traditional garden. In a rock garden plants have time to develop a root system and grow to maturity with very little disturbance.in a rock garden, the gardener may pull an occasional weed or periodically water, but nature does its God-given work, and a formerly awkward spot becomes something truly beautiful, if not breathtaking. Gardeners don’t need to overhaul the layout or rearrange the rocks in order to uncover the plants’ potential. Instead, their unique characteristics are showcased in the new, colorful growth emerging in the cracks and crannies.

Back to your impossible person. What might happen if you thought of yourself as a seed sower in that impossible person’s life? Think too about what may be taking root in his or her heart. Remember that you are in each other’s lives for a reason and that God can make things grow in the most unlikely places.

If He can create beauty among the rocks, how much more beauty will He bring forth in someone’s life?

Lord, You know how difficult it is for me to be around ___________________ — and You know why. Search my heart and help me be a source of encouragement and an example of Your grace when we are together. And when You enable that to happen, to You be all the glory.

Excerpted with permission from Devotions from the Garden by Miriam Drennan, copyright Thomas Nelson.

* * *

Your Turn

Who is your impossible person? Today, let’s pray for our impossible person, not that they would change, but that we would be changed for the good as we learn to sow wisely in that relationship. Here’s an even tougher question: To whom are you an impossible person? Ouch! Today, let’s pray that our eyes would be open to the relationships in which we are hardhearted and impossible to deal with and ask the Lord to work on us. Come join the conversation on our blog! We want to hear from you about impossible relationships! ~ Devotionals Daily