Looking at the Heart

My husband and I had decided that we needed a little landscaping for our new house, so we headed off to the nearest Plant Shed to choose the trees. My husband was set on a pecan tree, but I was okay with whatever looked best for the yard.

We walked through the nursery and separately selected a couple of trees. He had gone to look at the few pecan trees that were there; I had gone to look at the "pretty ones". I chose a beautiful lacebark elm, and he chose the ugliest, scrawniest pecan tree I had ever seen. Being the submissive wife that I am, I only argued with him for half an hour or so. I finally relented and we bought the pecan tree. I was not a happy camper.


The tree was delivered, planted in the ground, mulched and watered. I hated it. He loved it. I really didn't think it would make it for very long. But it did make it. My husband lovingly tended that tree, but I still thought it was crooked, small and misshapen-ugly.


The first spring, it struggled to "leaf out", but it finally did. I began to think that it just might make it with a little TLC. I was sort of rooting for the tree now, although it still wasn't great looking. Then an amazing thing happened-that ugly little tree produced pecans its very first year! It produced the fruit that it was meant to produce. And I felt God say to me, "What more can you expect from a pecan tree than that it produce pecans? What difference does it make what it looks like if it is fruitful?" I had not seen the tree for what it really was or could be; I had only seen the cost and ugliness of it. God knew it would be fruitful, I did not. That pecan tree has borne pecans every season since it was planted. It still struggles. It grows ever so slowly, but it does grow.


As we meet or attempt to meet with our M & M relationships, we may be inclined to size up circumstances, comments, and even the woman herself by that which we can measurably see and hear. What a mistake it is to see through our own eyes and not the eyes of the One who loves her. We need to remember the relationship begins with prayer. As we pray for our M & M relationships, I believe we should be asking God to help us see them as He sees them. We need God's insight and wisdom in order to understand how we might correctly and lovingly "tend" them in the mentoring relationship.


"The LORD does not look a the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Sam. 16:7b

(written by Kim Collins)