Rooted

Recently God showed me I was like a tree that was stressing and striving “I want to bear fruit! I want to bear more fruit!” in an urgent hurry. God replied, “Stop trying to bear fruit and focus instead on putting your roots down in Me, drinking the water of my life-giving Word. The fruit will then just naturally come.”

There are a number of passages in scripture that use the image of us being a tree. Here are a few of them with my reflections on them:

How do I put my roots down and become a fruitful tree?

⁷ “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
⁸ For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.  (Jeremiah 17:7-8 )

By trusting in God. Believe His Word. Hold on to His promises. Walk in obedience to His commands.

By hoping in the Lord. Don’t let myself get bogged down in circumstances around me. Lift my eyes to consider how great He is:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
² My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.  (Psalm 121 v 1-2)

If my helper is the one who made heaven and earth, what is there that is too hard for Him?

¹ Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1v 1-3)

Walk in His ways.  Don’t get sucked along with the crowd, to ‘fit in’. Instead, ‘keep in step with the Spirit’ (Galatians 5 v 16) The first three verses show a progression from walking, to standing and finally sitting, which to my mind shows a growing comfortableness with the ways and company of those who are walking contrary to God’s ways.

Delight in the law of the Lord. Recognise the Bible for the treasure it is: truth, wisdom, love, instruction, comfort, God’s words to us.

Meditate on his law day and night. This is only really possible by memorising scripture or having it written up in places you will keep seeing it and reading it. This gets it in your heart and will help you more clearly discern whether the path you’re taking is in step with the Spirit or the wicked.

¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15 v 1, 4 -5)

Abide or remain. It sounds too easy. Too passive. Yet (for me at least) letting go of my own effort and allowing God to have his way in me is hard. I want it all to be done straight away and so I strive to ‘hurry up’ God’s process! Of course, it doesn’t work.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,

They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendour.  (Isaiah 61 v 1, 3)

Jesus came to rescue us. Why? That we will be ‘oaks of righteousness . . . for the display of his splendour’. Our growth from seeds to saplings to oaks is for His glory. It’s His work in me that transforms me and therefore all the glory goes to Him.

Accepting who I am

The final lesson I’ve been learning from this picture of a tree is to accept who I am. There are many different kinds of trees planted in many different places, at different stages of growth and fruitfulness. I tend to look at other ‘trees’ and think ‘I should be like that tree’, ‘I should have fruit like theirs’ or ‘I should be planted where they are’. I need to accept being the tree God made me to be, planted where He has planted me and at the stage of growth I am. And to turn my desire to be impressive and fruitful into trusting God, abiding in Him, digging deeper in His word and walking in obedience to each step He shows me, trusting Him for the speed and fruit of my growth.

“My client is not in a hurry”

Reflections on stress, rest and fun

Somehow I’ve always felt like I should be ‘doing something’. Preferably doing something ‘useful’, ‘for others’, something that requires discipline, selflessness, sacrifice and hard work. And the more I do of this the better; so to be rushing around, super-stressed feels extra spiritual.   But I’m realising that the people who were like that in the Bible were generally called Pharisees and they were getting it wrong a lot of the time.

I want to clarify that I think discipline, sacrifice and hard work are important and they are all commended in the Bible. It’s the stressed out rushing around like it all depended on me that’s not.

I was first arrested by this concept five years ago when I read Ann Voskamp’s quote “Life’s not an emergency. It’s a gift.” I realised that I was living mostly like it was an emergency.

More recently I heard a fantastic quote attributed to Gaudi the famous Spanish architect whose plans for the cathedral in Barcelona kept on getting grander and more intricate. Someone commented on how long it would take to complete the work and Gaudi replied “My client is not in a hurry.”  I love that. I am in so much of a hurry to be ‘completed’; for God to have finished working on me. But God is not in a hurry.

In the Bible, the kingdom of God is compared to a mustard seed growing into a tree. It is not a quick, dramatic process but a long, slow unfolding and unfurling over years that results in the amazing transformation.  That’s what God’s work in us is like, a gradual growing that doesn’t seem noticeable from day to day, but over time is an incredible change.

I sometimes live like God created me because there were so many jobs He needed doing. But we weren’t created to simply be a workforce. We were created for relationship. Relationships take time. They are slow.  At the end of my life, more important than the question “Have I been productive?” will be the question “Do you know Me? Do you love Me?”

What does this look like practically? Let’s take reading the Bible as an example. Am I prepared to slow down from racing through the Bible to have ‘achieved’ reading it in a year? Reading it in a year is a good thing but is it at the expense of hearing from God? Am I reading to meet with my Lord – to hear what He would say to me or to tick off something else on my to do list? It’s easy to turn spiritual discipline into accomplishing things in our own  strength to feel good about ourselves. Far better to read with a listening heart, ready to stop and ponder and hear what He wants to show me and teach me rather than ploughing on ‘to get to the end’.

I’ve often thought of rest as ‘inferior’ and ‘weak’ until my husband pointed out that God commanded it in the ten commandments. That brought me up short! That’s how important God considers rest to be. He deliberately created us to need to spend a reasonable chunk of each day sleeping.  Maybe rest, in its rightful place, is actually one of God’s good gifts to us, to be received with thankfulness and enjoyed as His blessing.

Similarly I’ve had a wrong attitude about ‘fun’. I’ve tended to dismiss it as trivial and frivolous. But actually God invented fun. He made laughter. He laughs! When I think of my children and picking them up from school, I don’t ask “Did you work hard?” (although I hope they did) but ‘Did you have a good day?” I want them to have had fun and enjoyed their day, not simply to have learned in drudgery.  It’s been quite transforming to consider that God actually wants me to enjoy each of the days He has given me.

God has filled the world with wonderful amazing things. He wants us to enjoy them and have fun as well as knuckle down to the discipline of the hard things. As with all things, we need to walk daily in dependence on God to get the right balance.

Father, thank You for the good gifts of rest and fun that you have given us. I chose to accept them and enjoy them as part of your expression of love to me. Praise You. Amen.