Roots

“Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.
“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.
Jeremiah 17: 5-8 (The Message)

How do you cope during a season of spiritual drought?

Last week I wrote about how I was frustrated about my relationship with God.

Sometimes it’s tempting to give up on God, to turn to the more tangible things for comfort and support: friends, money, your nice house. These are the solid things, the things you can reach out and touch and depend on. God is Spirit and ethereal and sometimes hard to understand.

But the Bible is backwards. Those things that look strong are nothing but tumbleweed; those paychecks, that approval from others, those advocates in high places that you have, they’re chaff. They’re blown away by the next wind, and it will happen so fast and so easily you won’t even know it when it does.

God turns our perception around. Those supposed solid and strong things are actually wispy and insignificant. True strength is not found in standing alone but clinging like a toddler onto God who isn’t always easy to see or feel, trusting through comfort and trusting through desperation.

Sometimes spiritual maturity is not about the fruit and the flowers. It’s about the roots: digging down, deep, into the dirt, into the silent and unseen, searching for water amidst the muck and worms.

This was my best five minutes on ‘Roots’. Also linking with

Beholding Glory

Over to you:

  • What are you most like at the moment- tumbleweed or a tree with roots by a river?

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34 Responses to Roots

  1. Donna 11th November, 2012 at 10:14 pm #

    For some reason this makes me think of how I have always wanted to have substance, spiritual weight. And the only way to get this is to have roots that go way, way down. Maybe, with everything that is going on with you and your illness and your relationship with God at the moment, maybe this is causing your roots to go down still deeper again. I wonder if the hard things in our lives could be seen as big rocks underground, and we get to chose whether we say ‘that’s it, obviously there’s no way I can go any further’ and just stop there… or whether we keep trying to find our way to the water and food that is there somewhere.
    Hmmm… how do roots know where to go? How do they know what direction to go in? How do they know where to find the water? This is something I’ve never thought of before! Do they maybe have some sense of smell… or can they feel the vibration of the water moving through the soil? Google search coming up!
    We live on an old river-bed, and the soil is very rocky and stony. When we plant trees they usually struggle to survive for years, and we look at them and wonder if they will ever grow tall and strong, and then we water them and speak encouraging words to them 🙂 (I speak encouraging words to them, my husband thinks I’m silly!) It usually takes around 7-8 years before we see any good growth on them and at that point we know that their roots have gotten through all the rocks and have found water. When we are watering them, we are, in essence, feeding them until they can feed themselves. Once their roots have found the water-table we stop watering them because they have found their own supply.
    Sorry for the long comment, but your words have sent me off on some interesting paths! And I have a feeling of excitement for you 🙂 It’s like you are being forced to find new places of supply in your relationship with God, and I have a strong feeling that there is a lot there, waiting for you to find it.
    So… I speak to you like I speak to my trees. You can do this! I know you can do this! You were made for such a time as this. Keep digging deeper with your roots, there is food and nourishment there for you – treasures in the darkness.
    🙂

    • Jamie 12th November, 2012 at 1:46 am #

      I love this encouraging comment! and all of its twists and turns about how roots work. 🙂

      • Tanya 12th November, 2012 at 2:23 pm #

        I love this comment too. Thank you – your encouragement at the end made me a bit teary.

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