“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
~ Jeremiah 17: 7-8
Ground stepped on can feel quite shaky. Like mountain soil slick with rocks refusing to let our feet hold firm. Overwhelming like a field so vast it confuses our feet into indecision. Unfamiliar floors weighed by foreign walls standing in hello to an 11 year old freshly disposed of girl from the back of a police car left standing in a home that is not home. I know that girl. I was that girl. Perhaps you too know some of the terrain I am referring to.
As the new year begins rolling with increasing steam one idea thread has popped up and stood out above all the rest. This social thread has been both a challenge and a personal call-to-action of sorts. It’s one simple word in theory but put into practice, anything but. What one word would you pick to camp on for the whole of 2018? Not just a word, but THE word, intentionally and prayerfully chosen to flagship the year forward. One word to think on and grow from. What one word would you choose? What word should I choose? Overwhelmingly, the word that resonates above all the rest for me is rooted.
Why rooted?
In short, without roots we are rootless, swayed left and right, up and down by a relentless wave of shifting sand. A plant up-rooted can’t survive the elements long, and neither can we. Nor can a plant pick and dust it’s self off to be self-planted once again. A plant needs planted by hands outside it’s self. What I have been discovering and learning for quite some time now is that if we know not who we are by knowing whose we are, then left to ourselves we will seek to fill and define most everything pertaining to our self. But life, this fleeting life we have been so graciously given, is not about us at all. We so easily forget that we are created with one purpose, to glorify God. Roots that God plants are strong, sturdy, and fruitful.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being ROOTED and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ~ Ephesisans 3: 14-19
To be ROOTED is to TRUST
Becoming rooted is the surrender and opening of tight-clenched fists to become sifted and planted by the hands of the great I Am. It is foundational, unshakable trust. Trust that is not in myself or of myself, or even planted in others beside myself, but trust that digs into God and God alone. Roots planted by and in God go deep, deeper than I can even begin to understand. They survive the chaos of storms and circumstances and remain green and un-withered despite drought. They are roots void of anxiety. Regardless of external surroundings, God is the fruitful bedrock that sustains.
May this year be a ROOTED kind of year.
This girl once orphaned is orphaned no more. Nor is she captive to fear. For I know myself to be adopted in and grafted into the vine that is God’s family. I am forever His. In Christ I know who I am and whose I am, and that truth roots and grounds me in a love like no other. It’s soil I need to be reminded of often and a truth too easily forgotten when storms rage, circumstances roar, and people do what people do best, sin. The heat can remain and the drought may linger, but God is an unquenchable well. So this year, yes, I deeply desire to remain deeply ROOTED. God grows amazingly beautiful things from deep roots.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, Amen.” ~ Ephesians 3:20-21