In 2008, my wife and I rented a plot of land near our home and began creating our own vegetable garden. I did not know how anything grew, so I prepared the soil intuitively, sifting out the stones and adding compost and manure to the remaining earth. As a result, everything I planted grew. I decided not to add chemical fertilizers to the soil or spray my plants with anything.
Over the years, I came to understand that garden plants have their own laws of planting, growth, and development. What is suitable for one is not always acceptable for another. Some plants need frequent watering, while others should not be watered so often.
Once, after buying several blueberry bushes, I planted them in ordinary soil and waited for a rich harvest. During the first year, they produced a few berries from their own reserves. In the second year, they began to wither and die, although every branch still clung to life. I realized that I was doing something wrong and decided to ask experts what I should do. It turned out that this crop needs acidic soil that must not come into contact with ordinary ground. I dug a deep hole, lined it with plastic, filled it with what the professionals recommended, and mixed everything thoroughly. As a result, the blueberries revived and began delighting me every year with an abundant harvest.
My fruit trees also require care, pruning, and protection from ants. When I do everything necessary, I rejoice in a rich abundance of berries and fruit. The trees that bear no fruit I cut down and replace with others.
Because of the abundant harvest from my garden, I became known among my neighbors as an experienced gardener who grows all the most delicious produce in large quantities. I do not consider myself such a gardener, because I do almost nothing. I merely create favorable conditions for the plants to live, and afterward they take care of themselves.
But I noticed that various pests also enjoy my harvest. Because I do not spray anything with anything, the ‘fruit eaters’ appreciated this and took note of it. God’s creatures also need something to eat.
I also noticed that weeds grow everywhere and all by themselves, requiring no care or attention. The longer you fail to notice them, the larger they become. At the beginning of their growth, they can be pulled out and thrown away easily. Later, however, they must be dug up, and removing them requires considerable time and effort.
I also have a greenhouse where delicate tomatoes grow and require special care and support. Growing them takes most of my time. But at the appointed time, the tomatoes produce so much fruit that I am able to share it with many people around me.
Relationships between people remind me in some ways of the laws governing plant life. Some good people, when placed in an unfavorable environment, begin to wither and die spiritually. Others, like pests entering a good community, begin destroying everything good and cultivated around them. There can be no discussion of good fruit; the challenge is simply to preserve whatever remains alive. Yet because the pest is a human being, that person must also be cared for and given proper attention. In the end, we see what we have and wonder where the fruit is.
Love for one another has certain laws that remain constant and firm whether I know them or not. When two people decide to love one another, both must mutually ensure that their love remains love rather than becoming a vacuum cleaner that sucks everything in and gives nothing back. Love for one another develops only when both friends create healthy conditions for their relationship, invest their hearts in it, and make sure that no alien spirit enters their union. When both faithfully maintain all these conditions, fruit soon appears, begins developing rapidly, and nourishes the people who love one another. Other people also have an opportunity to taste something from this friendship. The influence of loving people extends very far, and the fruit of their love becomes exceedingly delicious, nourishing everyone around them.
Knowing the flavor, power, and influence of love, Jesus commanded us to possess it within our relationships. At the end of time, He desires to sell all of this to us under the symbols of heavenly treasures, teaching us to live in what we have acquired.
Nowhere does fruit grow as beautifully as within our love for one another. We create ideal greenhouse conditions for it. Through the kindness of our hearts, our mutual faith in God, and our unity of thought and spirit, we warm the tender plant of our love and protect it from destructive attacks. People outside have no access to the greenhouse of our love for one another. Therefore, it remains under the special protection of our choice to love and to be tender, principled, and faithful within this love.
The enemy of the soul hates unions like these and sends his pests to introduce distrust and suspicion into our relationship through gossip, whispering accusations, ridicule, envy, and other sins. Here we must remain vigilant, identifying strange fire that does not warm, but burns and destroys everything good from within.
When caring for plants, I exercise special wisdom. I make sure that every law is properly observed; otherwise, I will have no harvest, and everything will perish. Yet for some reason, in love for one another, I decide that no care is necessary and that the plant will somehow grow strong by itself. Then I sit among the ruins of friendship and wonder why my friend lost heart so quickly when I periodically took bites out of him to test the strength of his love. Although he says that he loves me, he no longer draws close to me because he desires to remain healthy. Naturally, this provokes my faultfinding and mockery of such love.
A spirit like this destroys the closest attachment from within. You should not blame the separation upon your loving friend, who decided in faith to build a friendship with you and accepted everything except your open hostility toward him.
Love for one another is an extremely delicate plant that needs an atmosphere of love from both sides. It is highly sensitive to anything that can kill it. Therefore, every outside struggle and fall should be left beyond the boundaries of the friendship. We should not reveal an alien spirit in an attempt to test a friend’s strength. The friend may endure, but the plant is in danger of dying.
Sometimes a friend may be depressed because something has weighed him down or because he has fallen. Although this information is sad, it tells us that somewhere in the friend’s life the conditions are not favorable for healthy living and that he does not know how to conduct himself in the situation. At that moment, your fresh and optimistic perspective from outside can help turn all your friend’s problems to good, find a way out through the choice of happiness, and continue walking this path together, finding the road to victory.
If my friend and I do not fight for the purity and warmth of our relationship and do not treasure it, it will soon end. Then we will be astonished that our friend suddenly turned out not to be genuine.
The fruit of the Spirit does not grow like a weed just anywhere. It grows and bears fruit only under particular conditions that I—or my friend and I together—create for it.
I can love an enemy and one-sidedly distribute holy things and pearls abundantly to those who do not value them. But within a relationship with a friend, everything must be done with love and special tenderness.
Bible Verses for Reflection
Galatians 6:7; 1 Peter 1:22; Romans 8:14; 12:9–10, 16; Proverbs 14:1; 17:9, 17; 18:24; 22:11; Song of Solomon 7:11; Matthew 7:6, 16; 13:18–23; Isaiah 5:21; Revelation 3:18; John 13:34–35; Galatians 5:15, 22–23.