Rooted

We have lived in our current home for just slightly under a year. For the entirety of that year my wife, Robyn, and I have talked about wanting to make some major adjustments to the flowerbeds in front of our house. Whoever owned the house before us did a nice job of trimming back the bushes and making things look presentable enough to convince us to buy the house, but it was still clear that no one had actually lived in the house for quite some time and they probably hadn’t done much with the landscaping. Last weekend we decided it was time to get down and dirty and make some much-needed changes. There were several plants that needed to be removed, and a few that needed to be planted.

Before we could do anything else, we had to clear some space. We had to remove some awkward and/or oversized plants from the ground. Some of the smaller plants were easy. We simply pulled them out by hand. Others, however, were going to require a little more effort. We grabbed a tow strap, wrapped it around the base of the plants, connected it to my truck, and out they came… most of them, that is. Two of the bushes had grown incredibly deep roots. I tried several different methods of pulling the plants out, but each attempt ended with the sound of tires spinning on the pavement. These plants were not coming out without a fight. Our only option was to dig around the plant as deeply as possible to loosen the connection the roots had to the soil. On several occasions, we had to resort to cutting the roots because they were simply too big and too deep.

The Bible often talks about our lives in agricultural terms. Throughout the New Testament in particular, we read many passages that encourage us to be careful to plant good seeds in our lives that we might bring forth good produce. Here are a few thoughts that occurred to me through my time in the garden this weekend.

Be intentional about what you plant in the soil of your life. We need to make sure we are planting, watering, and feeding the right plants in our lives. What you plant is what you will produce. Read these words of Jesus.

A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart. – Luke 6:43 & 45 (NLT)

If we want to produce the fruit of righteousness with our lives, we need to make sure that is what we are planting. What we plant will grow roots down into our very hearts and will determine who we become and what we do.

Removing one thing doesn’t require us to replace it with another.

Removing one thing doesn’t require us to replace it with another. There are so many good things we can do with our time, talents, and treasures. We must remember, however, that while our opportunities may be without limit, our resources are not. We need to be good with saying “NO” to some very positive and productive opportunities so that we might say “YES” to those which are better and best.

The longer it grows, the harder it will be to remove. It is all too easy to ignore that which is inconvenient and ugly when it is little. Small plants, however, are much easier to relocate or remove. The bigger the plant, the deeper the roots, the more difficult to remove. We need to stop putting off until tomorrow that which needs to be dealt with today.

The longer it grows, the harder it will be to remove.