Deep Roots!

So, with my birthday coming up fairly soon now, I'm starting to feel my age a bit, being now firmly into my late 20s! Over the last few years my body has been gradually changing - I now need a lot more sleep than I used to (or rather, I am forced to admit this slightly more often than I used to), my joints ache more easily than they used to, and my preferences have changed. One example that I will admit to, is that I'm actually starting to enjoy gardening(!), which I thought would never happen. My parents have always been keen gardeners, but much as I've always loved the end results I could never see the attraction of the process of gardening itself - why would you want to get yourself covered in soil, and crawl around with the creepy crawlys! But, since moving, I have discovered the joys of gardening gloves (cutting out the first problem!) and I have discovered the satisfaction of seeing something that you have planted then spring to life!

But, with the joys of gardening, comes also the hard work. With the weather improving (a bit) of late, our grass has started to grow rapidly! And not only the grass, but the weeds too. So, it is my job this weekend to de-weed our lawn - and it's proving more of a challenge than I first thought! Dandelions sure have deep roots, which I never appreciated before! You can understand why they are so ubiquitous and why they survive in places where other things won't. So, one challenge removing them, is whether to dig out these roots. The temptation is to just remove the surface plant, as the grass will then immediately look better and I won't have to go to all the trouble of removing the roots. But, if I do that, then I know that the weeds will just grow right back again, so actually, doing this surface weeding just creates more work in the long run.

So, decision made - remove the roots. But this job is hard work. The roots run deep, so I therefore have to dig deep to find them. It also creates patches of bare soil in the middle of the lawn, where I've removed the plants, which doesn't immediately make it look better! But, once I have also sown the grass seed that I have bought, in the long run the lawn will be so much healthier, even if it takes that little longer and a bit more work to get there.  

It's like that with my life too. I went on a course called Freedom in Christ at my church in Guildford last year. It was amazing, and uncovered so many issues that I never even realised were holding me back. But, yesterday one of these issues - which I thought had been dealt with - reared its head again, in a different form. I realised that this thing is still affecting me, and that its roots must run deeper than I had initially thought. Now, again, the temptation is to just deal with the surface behaviours (or even worse, to just ignore it!), but that won't deal with the underlying problem which will just allow it to come back again! Removing the roots will be hard work, and perhaps painful, but in the long run I will be healthier for it.

I am reminded of the parable of the sower in the Bible, where Jesus talks about a farmer scattering seed. He says that some of the seed "fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants" (Matthew 13:7), and that the interpretation of this is that  ^"the seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful" (Matthew 13:22) (so, having weeds in your life doesn't just look untidy, but it also makes you unfruitful!)

Jesus also says, on another occasion, that "“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15:1-2). So, whilst pruning (or weeding?!) may be painful, it is for our good and will help us ultimately to become more fruitful in our lives.

So, is just simply removing the weeds the goal then? No. There is also a parable in Matthew 12, where Jesus talks about how if an evil spirit comes out of a man, if it returns to find the house it left swept clean but unoccupied, it will just come back again (and bring some friends with it!) I suppose that in the same way if we just weed our lives, but then don't fill the space with something else, then the weeds will just grow back, and potentially grow even bigger than before! But if we put something else in its place, then the weeds will have no room to grow.

Steven Curtis Chapman has just released a new album called Deep Roots. It is called such for several reasons: it is very much a return to his roots in terms of music style (which is awesome by the way), the album contains several old hymns which he has rearranged, and it involves his family (who sing and play on many of the tracks) showing his deep family roots. I want to have deep roots too - not by having weeds in my life that are deeply rooted, but by being deeply rooted in God. One of my favourite Bible passages is in Ephesians 3, where Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus. One of the things he mentions is that they would be "rooted and established in love" (Ephesians3:17). When we are deeply rooted and established in love (and God is love, right!) when storms come we will be able to stand fast and not be destroyed. We will be "like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither" (Psalm1:3). I'm certainly not that person yet - as demonstrated by the fact that I have allowed this move to toss me about far more than I should! But, roots take time to grow, and in this culture of ours, which demands everything to be instant, that can be difficult to remember. I am still on a journey, as all of you are too. I just want to make sure that I am going the right way, and that I am someone who is prepared to let God dig deep in my life (because, He loves me as I am, but He loves me too much to leave me that way!)