Roots

There is a particular spot in my back yard, about a 10 x 15 foot area that my wife and I would like to someday turn into a little patio area.  Right now it’s an overgrown mess.  Tall, hardy weeds; tough, little weedy shrubs; various grasses and all sorts of other annoying vegetation call the place home. Trying to keep this area under control is a lot of work.  No matter how many times I cut it all down it keeps coming back, often times bigger and hardier than before.  And if I fail to stay on top of it for too long it becomes a solid weekends worth of work.

One of the keys to getting rid of certain things like tall weeds, shrubs and other things is to get at the roots.  If all you do is cut down what’s above the surface, leaving the roots alone, then the thing is bound to grow back.

My battle with this piece of landscaping is similar to the enemy’s battle with us.  His ultimate goal is to destroy our relationship with God.  To do that he keeps hacking away at our blessings.  Does it ever seem like whenever something good happens to you that you hardly have time to enjoy it before something happens to it, or something stressful pops up in direct relation to it?  Those are the garden shears of the enemy.  And, just like I have to be with my landscaping, he has to be on top of them all the time, lest they grow and bear more fruit than he can handle.  It may not be what anybody wants to hear – but he’s not going to let up.  But the good news?  He can’t ever get at your roots, if your roots are Jesus Christ.  Which means those blessings will keep coming back to annoy the enemy.  As long as you don’t let him discourage you into letting go of those roots, then he can never achieve his ultimate goal of killing your relationship with the Father.

UNLIKE my landscaping problem, our blessings are not weeds they are flowers. Nor is the enemy the gardener.  He’s just a thief in the garden who has no legal right to be there. The gardener is you.  Expected me to say God, didn’t you.  It is true that there would be no flowers in the garden, or even a garden at all, if not for the grace of God.  But God gave us the responsibility of tending the garden.  We can plant the seeds of our blessings by ardently following after Him.  (…I will not let you go unless you bless me – Gen 32:26).  We can water and fertilize our blessings, and make them to be hardy plants resistant to the enemy’s shears, with prayer.  Prayer can insulate and protect our blessings the way piles of leaves insulate flowers against the frost.  Prayer keeps the weeds that would choke our flowers at bay the way fertilizer with weed control works in the natural.  Why?  Because prayer is the active nurturing of our relationship with Jesus Christ, who provides the right amount of rain and sun for the garden we are tending.  It strengthens the roots.  And the flowers are really just the visible manifestation of the strength of our roots.  If we protect our roots then we will always have flowers in our garden.  (Here on Earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I (JESUS) have overcome the world. – John 16:33 [Parenthetical emphasis added]).