Tulips, Timbers or Tempers

When counseling with couples, leaders, etc., I remind them that we approach relationships and life one of two ways, essentially: gardener or carpenter.

A carpenter has an overall mindset of fixing most anybody and anything ranging from a few, minor details to everything small to great. A gardener will know when to trust God since He is ultimately in control and know how to wait patiently and confidently upon the Lord. In this later model, alone, there is such a great opportunity for supernatural peace and rest. A carpenter-minded individual looks critically at people, relationships, etc. with a view to correct and fix - oftentimes immediately.

There are those times to 'fix' things but more often than not, the gardener approach is best.

The gardener approach doesn't make sense to the human mind because it speaks or smacks of compromise or indecisiveness. Again, it is a matter of trust.

Scripture tells us that with the gardener approach there are those times that we do nothing because the collateral damage will be too great. Christ tells us to let the wheat and tares (speaking of two kinds of people in that context) grow together undisturbed until the 'time of the harvest' lest you pull up the wheat when trying to take care of the tares (that look exactly like wheat).

That doesn't make sense to the self-reliant Christians in America who live so autonomously from God. Why wait on God to fix something for us when we can just simply take care of it ourselves. That's the point: letting God be THE Authority.

Remember the next time you are presented with an opportunity for conflict, you can handle it like you would your tulips, planks and timber, or take the chance on inflaming tempers. My approach, most of the time, is it is much better to tend to the gardens of our life.

Remember, let's follow Christ's example. He was a carpenter, for sure, who managed like a gardener.