How Relationships Move Us

Posted by Andrew Hedges on September 25, 2012 · 4 Comments 

When we establish a relationship with someone, we begin to care.

Our conversations move from a simple exchange of words to seeing words as gifts. Being together changes from merely passing time to redeeming time. Relationships create an opening in our hearts and souls from which we begin to know what it means to be human.

Yet in today’s culture, relationships are desired but rarely pursued. It’s embedded in our way of life.

I had not seen it as clearly before a recent trip to visit a local farmer.

As part of our biblical stewardship, we are considering the food we are feeding our bodies and the relational connections we have with our community. We’ve found some excellent organic foods through our involvement in a CSA (community-supported agriculture). We receive a hearty box of tasty produce each week, and it’s been a wonderful, healthy way to eat.

But, we wanted to go further. We know that we could continue to receive a box of great food each week without knowing anything about the people who grow them. Thankfully, our gardening friends felt the same way about the people for which they provide the food. So, they invited us over to check out the farm.

Walking in someone else’s shoes moves you to care.

Now we know about how hard they work to cultivate the soil. We have a clue as to all they go through to plant, wait, harvest, and rotate crops. It’s not the disconnected feeling you get from walking into a huge grocery store and avoiding people using a Uscan. You realize that what you are able to enjoy comes at a price.

It has also become an illustration for a faith awakening. It takes spending time with poor, prisoners, widows and orphans to understand Jesus being moved with compassion. Being in the fields with the farmers opens your mind to Jesus’ view of creation through His constant use of agricultural illustrations. In pursuing these relationships, we find ourselves in an interesting place.

Investing in relationships with others also deepens our relationship with our Savior.

We are a relationally desperate culture, so our pursuit of genuine relationships will be like swimming upstream. People will expect our daily experiences to be completed quickly and efficiently because our culture values speed.

But we value relationships, and relationships take time.

Our life will slow down because of our decision. Calendars will need to be simplified. Some things will need to be sacrificed. But relationships are key to our health and our faith.

What’s more, Jesus values relationship – enough to give up everything in order to have a relationship with us.

May what moved the heart of Jesus move us.

But keep in mind that pursuing relationship will likely end up with you caring more deeply than you ever thought possible.

Filed under Awakened Faith, Responsible Living · Tagged with agriculture, care, caring, community-supported agriculture, creation, CSA, farmers, farming, health, healthy, heart, Jesus, local, organic, relationship, relationships