Colossians 2:6,7 “Continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught.”
In different parts of Burundi we often go through periods of drought. Farmers who plant corn can never rest on their laurels, even when there are good rains. Their crop is always vulnerable, because the plants don’t push their roots deep down in search for water when there are abundant rains. The roots remain near the surface, so a sudden drought can kill them off very quickly.
It can be remarkably similar with us followers of Jesus. With the abundance of ‘rains’ of freedom to worship, access to great teaching, peace and prosperity, we could easily settle for shallow roots instead of becoming ‘rooted and built up in him’, as the verse above says. If that’s the case, then when droughts come, in the form of financial, relational, health problems or whatever else, we’re ill-equipped to maintain faith in God. We suddenly doubt his faithfulness, power and sovereignty. We just haven’t gone deep enough.
As a teenager, when I came to faith, I memorised promises in the Bible, verses like Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you” and Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength”. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly recommend learning Scriptures. Those are great promises, and I still stand on them and claim them for my life. But my shallow triumphalist interpretation of those verses needed challenging so as to push my roots deeper. It was only during the harder times, for example, that I embraced the promise that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).
You can’t bear good fruits without deep roots. How are your fruits? How are your roots?
Lord, I choose to become deeply rooted in you today so that I will be able to weather all life’s storms in the future. Amen!
PS Check out this story about an agricultural project in Burundi.
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