Cultivate Love
What does “cutlitvate love” mean in a marriage? Is there more use for this saying than a trendy word on a t-shirt?
Let’s start with the definition of cultivate:
To improve and prepare (land), as by plowing or fertilizing, for raising crops; till.
To loosen or dig soil around (growing plants).
To grow or tend (a plant or crop).
If you compare your marriage to a garden, you can get more of an idea for how this might work. (Sort of. If you are like me you have gardened minimally and it hasn’t produced anying impressive. So maybe we can both borrow from what we might hear or read about fabulous gardening.)
So apparently you’re supposed to spend a lot of time and energy (and possibly money) on preparing the soil. (Maybe that’s why my russet potatoes never got bigger than the size of a small turnip? Ain’t nobody got time for that). What is the soil of your marriage? I think of the soil as your HEART. “Improving and preparing” your heart for love has to do with allowing God to search your heart and remove the rocks and debris, and receiving an outpouring of His love into your heart to make it more pliable.
“God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart.
Examine me through and through;
find out everything that may be hidden within me.
Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares.
See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on,
and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way—
the path that brings me back to you.”-(Psalm 139:23-24 TPT)
Unresolved pain in our lives always comes out somewhere in our relationships. Like rocks, it prevents love from taking root and actually growing. Without His love being poured into us through intimate encounters with His presence, there isn’t much in us that is available for life-giving connections with our spouse.
Many people (like me with planting things) prefer to bypass this process because of the amount of work required. In one of my attempts at planting a lawn, I enlisted the help of a (very very good and kind) friend to help me “prepare” the soil. A couple of hours after whacking away with some kind of tool I don’t even know the name of (just to prepare it to be rototilled, not even to plant yet), I saw that this was going to take MANY more hours (days actually) and much more discovery of how many muscles in my body I don’t actually use. I stopped then and there and said never again. What this meant is that I never got my lawn and spent the remainder of the years we lived there looking out my front window at a large square of dirt. We make our choices.
Should you choose the work of allowing God to search your heart and devoting yourself to abiding in His presence, it will then be time to “grow or tend” your marriage. If you passed 3rd grade I think you at least have a sense of what this means (let’s take a moment to reflect on your bean seed in your styrofoam cup): Water. Put in sun. Don’t keep displacing the dirt to see if it’s still there.
Your relationship needs to be watered with positive words and encouragement. I realize that sounds like the slogan of a christian radio station, however, I’m telling you this is LIFE GIVING LIKE NO OTHER. I’m also not saying I excel at this. What I am saying is that it will feed your marriage with essential nutrients.
Put your marriage under the light of faith. I can’t emphasize this one enough (and it might be where I do best by God’s grace). Do a Duck-Duck Go search for “God’s promises for marriage”. Pray and declare them out loud over your marriage and your spouse regularly and hold on to them like with the grip of a pitbull. Even when it looks like it’s dying on the vine.
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits.”-Prov. 18:21
“Now faith brings our hopes into reality
and becomes the foundation needed
to acquire the things we long for.
It is all the evidence required
to prove what is still unseen”.-(Heb. 11:1)
Along those lines, don’t keep “checking” to make sure your marriage is going to make it (or even thrive). Do your part and then rest in faith for what GOD is able to do in your situation. “Jesus responded, ‘What appears humanly impossible is more than possible with God. For God can do what man cannot.’”-(Luke 18:27)
You are not responsible for the results of your faith or your prayers. And I realize you risk grave disappointment by taking such a stand of faith. I also know that you will still be disappointed if your marriage fails, with or without faith. I love the way Joyce Meyer puts it: “I’d rather ask God for everything and get some of it than ask for nothing and get all of it”. It always pleases God to have faith, no matter how it turns out in the end. You will be rewarded for your faith, if not in the form of abundant (albeit imperfect) life in your marriage like it did for us, it will come in some other way.
“And without faith living within us
it would be impossible to please God.[a]
For we come to God in faith[b]
knowing that he is real and that he rewards the faith
of those who passionately seek him.”-(Heb. 11:6 TPT)
If you have stopped cultivating love in your marriage, go get some tools, roll your sleeves up and get to work in faith.
