Roots dig deep and plummet depths of a dry earth. Searching..always searching. Growing and groping their way to that life-sustaining current running through the ground: water. Life. Twisting into the earth, they suck the water like giant straws, carrying the water to the very tops of the tree's branches, reaching to the farthest leaves. No leaf is left dry.
Roots dig deep and clutch earth, their tendrils curling and grasping soil. Spreading, entwining, they brace and bolster a towering tree. That tree will withstand gale force winds, setting her face against the storms, but she will not fall. The roots uphold and strengthen her being. She will still flower, she will still bear fruit. She will thrive, because she is rooted. Yes, "the root of the righteous will bear fruit." (Pr 12:12)
And what of roots and towering trees? I ponder as I course familiar paths, stumbling over those very roots that nurture the canopy shielding me from the sun's afternoon heat.
Roots.
Rooted.
Many times when a tree dies it is because there has been damage to the roots. Because the tree is no longer sustained by its life-giving roots, it rots and dies or is the victim of a wind storm. The weak roots are ripped from the earth, and the tree colapses. Dead.
And me. Am I rooted? Are my roots growing in fertile soil, drawing the "living water?"(Jn7:38) Or am I allowing the roots of my being to go unfed, unwatered? Where do I need to dig in my roots?
"Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. " (Col. 2:6-7)
How can I expect to flourish if my roots, my being is not entrenched in the life-giver, the one who sustains?
I must be "rooted and grounded in love," so that I "may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that (I) may be filled with the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:17-19)
I must be rooted in Christ so that I can withstand the tempests, the trials, and the temptations of life. They will come. But if my roots are secure in Him, I, like the tree, will not fall. I will flourish.
