“How Are Your Roots?”


BIBLE READING: Colossians 1-4, Philemon
DISCUSSION                                                                 
                Even though it is the holiday season, I am always looking forward to the Spring.  The Spring brings about sunshine, flowers and yard work.  Yes, I said it…I enjoy working out in the yard.  I love the smell of fresh cut grass, the look of fresh mulch around the shrubs and the exhausted feeling at the end of the day for a job well done.  One of the tasks that seems to go along with yard work is weeding out the flowerbeds.  If you don’t ignore it for weeks at a time, the weeding doesn’t take very long because they do not have a very deep root system.  That means with a quick tug of the weed, they come right up.  The same cannot be said for the removal of a shrub.  They take a good bit more work because they have been a part of the flower bed longer than the weeds and their root system is deeper and wider than that of the weeds.  Removal of a shrub may sometimes require a chain to pull it up with a truck, because the roots were so well established.  However, a tree is the hardest thing to remove.  A chainsaw does do wonders, but the stump removal seems to take longer.  You may have to bring in a tractor to dig up the stump or worse, rent or hire someone that has a stump grinder.  The reason is like that of a shrub, the roots of the tree go much deeper and thicker than that of a shrub making its removal much, much more difficult.  The Christian life can be compared to these three plants; many of us are like the weeds, we are easily distracted and uprooted from our faith because we have no real root system.  Others of us are like the shrubs, we have somewhat of a root system established but getting us to leave our faith is difficult.   We all should strive to be like the tree in the example, to have our roots so deep, it makes the devil’s work that much more difficult.  These types of Christians can fall, but it is much more difficult for them because they have been tested before so many times.  Paul encourages us in his letter to the church at Colossae to be “rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith” (Colossians 2.7).  We must do our best to stay rooted and grounded in the faith to make Satan’s job as difficult as possible.
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