Uprooted And Planted Again

The entire United Kingdom is under flood watch.  Rain has been coming in torrents, and ground water has been rising.  Fields are flooded,  along with roads, and in many cases, people’s homes.  Great damage has been done.  It’s a terrible situation for many.

My friend, Sally, who collected my mother and me from the airport two weeks ago, told me something which I found fascinating.  I share it with you now.  She was telling me about something she had seen on the TV news in relation to the recent flooding.  The news segment showed trees that had been uprooted due to the water surrounding it.  The entire root system had been exposed and the tree had floated away by several feet.  While that certainly sounds disastrous, it was being explained that, after the waters have receded, the trees can be moved back into position, and it will take root again firmly in the ground.  Isn’t that amazing?

As Sally was telling me this, a thought popped immediately into my head — you and I are sometimes like these trees.  Our roots are planted firmly in Jesus.  We stand strong in His Word, and we do not bend, no matter the storms of life that try to blow us over, or the waters of fear that try to uproot us — or do we?  In actual fact, we all have to admit that there have been times in our lives when we began to focus on the rising waters of our discontent more than we were focusing on the strength of God available to us.  Eyes were taken off the soil of God’s truth, which holds us firmly in place, and without intending to do so,  we fell over.  We were uprooted with our weaknesses; our foibles exposed for all to see.

What can we do?  We have two choices.  One — we can continue to lay there in our misery and failure.  Of course, that will only aid in drying us up spiritually, adding to more gloom.  A second choice — we can ask our Father, the Master Gardener, to put us upright again, and plant us once more into the good soil of His truth, and love, and forgiveness.  Father leaves the choice entirely to us.  He is always ready to plant our roots into His goodness, but He won’t force it.  It’s our free choice.  Only one choice leads to joy and inner peace; it’s the choice with God’s own promise, which reads as follows:

“Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him.  Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”  Colossians 2:7

What a lovely promise to claim when the waters of difficulty uproot us from our place of strength through Jesus Christ.