Roots

It was a burn day yesterday and yes I burned.  I love burning our collections of fallen limbs, brush and roots. With five acres we always seem to have quite the collection of piles around the property. 

I was walking around the property kicking over the manzanita roots that had been in the ground for at least three years.  The soil was just soft enough to wriggle them out.  

The Miriam Websters definition of root pertaining to roots of a plant/tree:  usually underground part of a seed plant body that originates usually from the hypocotyl, functions as an organ of absorption, aeration, and food storage or as a means of anchorage and support, and differs from a stem especially in lacking nodes, buds, and leaves.

Some roots are so shallow and I often wonder how they are holding up the trees at all.  Then the winds come and down go the trees.  How does a huge tree just fall down? 

Roots definition as pertaining to origin:  something that is an origin or source

 (as of a condition or quality)

 

one or more progenitors of a group of descendants —usually used in plural

 

an underlying support :  basis

 

the essential core :  heart —often used in the phrase at root

 

close relationship with an environment : 

 

So in tying these definitions with the plant definition....usually underground part of a seed plant body that originates usually from the hypocotyl, functions as an organ of absorption, aeration, and food storage or as a means of anchorage and support, and differs from a stem especially in lacking nodes, buds, and leaves.

 

It is essential to have a  strong support system or underlying support for all healthy, living, objects.

 

A little while back I decided to investigate my roots.  Some members of my family have researched and provided me with family trees, but none gave detailed information about their lives. 

I found many documents about my family and traced back to a simpler time. 

A time without electronics, automobiles, and the modern conveniences we now enjoy. 

However, I found the same human struggles as we still face. 

The struggle with our sin nature and God's desire for fellowship with us. 

Some of the decisions made in the past effected many generations to come.  Good or Bad.

In the Bible Paul calls us not only to walk in Christ, but to be rooted in him. So if you follow Christ, you are not only on the move with Christ, but firmly grounded in Christ.

 "Rooted" is a perfect passive participle which means that we are rooted in the past and that this rooting has present effects. It is from our roots in Christ that we draw the life-giving juices that flow through us enabling us to bear fruit for him today and forever.

I am not a  gardener, but I know that a plant is only as good as its roots. Although they are unseen, they are essential and so is Jesus! The reason so many apparent Christians wither and die soon after they profess their faith is that they have been stuck like cut flowers into the church's pot. You find them in the bud vases of a popular preacher, or the floral arrangement of a religious peer group. But they have no roots in Christ. And consequently, they have no staying power. They wilt like last month's corsage.

Where are your roots? If they are in a religious experience however exciting, if they are in a group relationship however warm, if they are in family tradition however strong, if they are in professional achievement however successful, if they are in anything other than Jesus Christ, your spiritual life juices will eventually dry up and you will die.

If you are rooted in Christ, then you will grow in him. You will draw constantly on his sustaining power.

  His love has no limit; His grace has no measure;
       His power has no boundary known unto men.
  For out of his infinite riches in Jesus
       He giveth and giveth and giveth again. (Annie Johnson Flint)

A city dweller moved to the country and bought a milk cow. Soon, however, the cow went dry. He complained to a neighboring farmer, "I just don't understand it. I was as kind and considerate to that cow as I knew how to be. If I didn't need any milk, I didn't milk her. If I needed only a quart, I took only a quart."

The neighbor tried to explain that the only way to keep milk flowing is not to take as little as possible, but to take as much as possible. That is also true of your life in Christ. The only way to grow in Christ is to receive from him all he has to give.

 

Since you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, grow in your walk in him, rooted and built up in him, established in your faith and overflowing with thanksgiving. That's the life!

 

Oh, how I am convicted today to root my life in Him, establish a greater faith and overflow with gratefulness.  I want His life to flow through me abundantly. 

 

Some of the text borrowed from and other resources available at:  http://www.christians.org/grow/grow09.html