Mind Your Roots!

Early last Thursday evening, my husband and I were watching television in our bedroom when we heard an odd sound.  I thought something was being dragged through the gravel in the driveway at the side of the house, but my daughter-in-law yelled to us that a tree had come down in the yard.

The tree that had fallen is not actually within our property boundaries, but it fell into an area adjacent to our lot that we keep mowed and treat as part of our yard.  The first picture shows how it fell.  In the second picture, you can see that this tree had no root system at all. The final picture shows the branches and leaves of a few younger trees that it took down with it on its destructive path toward the ground.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky that evening.  The wind wasn't blowing.  All was calm and peaceful, but still, with no provocation, that tree fell.  It reminded me of all the times that we hear about people who are caught in a massive moral failure or people who do horrific criminal acts.  Many times everyone around them is shocked because those folks were thought of as nice people, good neighbors, even people of faith.  Yet suddenly, they fall and fall mightily.  Could it be that they had no roots?  Were they disconnected even though they gave the appearance of being planted solidly in the community or church?

The tragedy of the fall of people who were once respected and admired is that they don't fall alone.  Just like this old, dead tree took down at least two young saplings, so there is collateral damage when a person's sin comes to light.  There is pain for those who are directly affected, disillusionment for those who looked up to them, and cynicism from those who are looking for a reason to discredit Christianity. Someone who was innocent in the entire situation can sometimes be brought down in a way that crushes their faith and moves them from a place of growth to a path of destruction.

Once this tree was a tall, flourishing part of the woods around it.  I don't know what happened to it to cause the roots to die and leave it without an anchor in the soil around it.  What I do know is that spiritually, that can happen to any of us.  If we are not diligent to keep ourselves in prayer and the Word, we can begin crumbling from the roots even though everyone around us may see us as a "pillar of the church".  We can look the part, sound the part, and act the part, but be full of absolutely nothing. Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, we can be swayed by a momentary temptation born of our own discontent and fall in a very public and hurtful way that causes a wound to the body of Christ, our family, our friends, our co-workers.  None of us are so strong on our own that we can't be lead astray.

Colossians 2:6-7 says, "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

More than ever, we need to watch that we are securely rooted, not for our sakes only, but for the precious brothers and sisters around us that need us to be strong in the Lord.  Mind your roots!