We Are Seeds…

Life has a funny way of giving back what we put into it.

Love and hate are both seeds. So are kindness and cruelty, respect and disrespect, honesty and deceit. Every day, through our words, choices, and the way we treat people, we are planting something. And eventually, whether we like it or not, something will grow.

We often pray for good things to come into our lives, but sometimes we forget to ask ourselves what we have been planting.

If we haven't sown kindness, what kindness do we expect to harvest? If we haven't shown respect, why are we surprised when respect is missing from our relationships? If we consistently hurt, dismiss, embarrass, or disrespect people, what makes us believe there will be no consequences?

One of the hardest things about life is taking an honest look at ourselves.

Self-righteousness can make that almost impossible. When we become convinced that we are always right, we stop questioning our own actions. We create a little bubble around ourselves where our behavior always has an explanation, our mistakes are always justified, and someone else is always to blame.

The danger is that the longer we live inside that bubble, the more convincing it becomes.

We can repeat the same behaviors for so long that they begin to feel normal. We can convince ourselves that our way is the right way simply because it is the way we have always done things. But something feeling right to us does not automatically make it right.

And self-justification does not erase consequences.

People respond to how we make them feel. They remember how we treated them when others were watching, but they also remember what happened when nobody was watching. They remember the disrespect, the kindness, the betrayal, the encouragement, the humiliation, and the moments when we either stood up for them or made them feel small.

Sometimes we wonder why someone has changed toward us without stopping to consider what they experienced from us.

The truth is, we don't get to control the harvest simply because we don't like the seeds we planted.

This isn't about living in fear of consequences or being perfect. None of us gets everything right. We will hurt people, make mistakes, misunderstand situations, and sometimes act from our own wounds. But there is a difference between making a mistake and refusing to take responsibility for one.

Self-accountability asks difficult questions:

Was I kind? Was I fair? Did I honor this person? Did I speak about them differently when they weren't there? Did I treat them with the same respect in private that I showed them in public? Could I have handled that situation better?

Those questions may humble us, but humility is not weakness. Sometimes humility is the beginning of growth.

So, before we complain about the harvest, perhaps we should take a closer look at the garden.

What are we planting in our relationships?

Are we planting love or resentment? Respect or humiliation? Trust or suspicion? Kindness or cruelty?

Because eventually, the seeds we sow will grow into something.

And when that time comes, may we have planted enough good seeds that the harvest gives us something beautiful to live with.

Sow love. Sow kindness. Sow respect. Sow grace. And when you get it wrong, have the courage to acknowledge it, make it right, and plant differently.

Because the life we experience tomorrow is often connected to what we choose to plant today but then, we ourselves are seeds.

What Part Do We Play?

We often say, “The world is evil. People are wicked. Nobody has morals anymore.”

But who exactly are these people we are talking about?

Are they strangers we have never met? Or are they also you and me?

It is easy to point at the world and talk about how broken it has become. It is much harder to look inward and ask, “What am I contributing to the world I complain about?”

Maybe evil is not always something dramatic. Sometimes it looks like the small ways we hurt people and convince ourselves it doesn't matter. It can be gossiping about someone and then smiling in their face. It can be disrespecting someone because we know they will forgive us. It can be humiliating someone in front of others and calling it a joke. It can be refusing to apologize because our pride tells us we were justified.

And sometimes, it is simply seeing someone hurting and deciding that it is not our problem.

If every one of us waits for someone else to make the world better, then nothing changes.

The world becomes better when we become better.

It starts with something as simple as how we speak to people, how we treat those who cannot do anything for us, how we behave when nobody is watching, and how willing we are to admit when we are wrong.

We cannot control everyone else's seeds, but we can be intentional about the ones we plant.

So perhaps instead of asking, “What's wrong with people?” we should sometimes ask, “What am I bringing into the world?”

Am I adding more bitterness or more kindness? More division or more understanding? More hurt or more healing?

Maybe changing the world isn't always about doing something extraordinary.

Maybe it begins with refusing to become part of the very problem we complain about.

The world is made up of people. And if we want a better world, perhaps the first person we need to work on is the one looking back at us in the mirror.