We recently returned from celebrating a family reunion in Tennessee. Each family member was given a T-shirt with the reunion theme – “Our Roots Run Deep.” When I read the theme, it took me back to over 25 years ago when God gave my husband, Malcolm, an employment opportunity to relocate to Chicago, Illinois. I remember all the thought that went into deciding if this was the right thing to do, especially with an elderly family member’s health concerns, my many years of civil service, and our commitment to servanthood at our beloved church.
Back then, Malcolm used to drive me to work from Columbia to DC. One morning we heard Dr. David Jeremiah conclude his message by saying, “If God has placed something on your heart, like moving to another state to take a job offering, do it.” He said further, “God says, ‘If you love Me, you will obey what I command’” (John 14:15). I remember how Malcolm and I were flabbergasted when we heard that. We looked at each other and said, “I guess we’re moving to Chicago.”
Thinking back to that exciting time, our November departure date finally arrived. The movers came to pack up everything we owned, among them huge house plants. The movers asked if we wanted the plants to go on the moving van. We thought they could survive in the van so we gave them the okay. When the plants arrived at our new home in Chicago, you could tell they had been frozen based on their limp, withered and translucent leaves! I remember calling my mother, sister and cousin in tears! Then my cousin said something profound: “Don’t worry about them. There’s life in the roots.”
Memories of that long ago time caused me to remember seeing those limp, withered and translucent plants and how they cast me into a spirit of despair. I began to feel quite disheartened. Reality set in that I had been uprooted from all that was familiar and planted in an unfamiliar place in the dead of winter. My roots were in Maryland where life was good. What kind of life was I expected to have in Chicago? How were those plants going to survive? How was I going to survive? Was there any life in my roots?
Since returning home from the family reunion, I have thought much about how roots run deep. Not in the biological sense of plants continuing to find life in their roots or in the familial sense of the genealogy of our family, but rather how deep our roots are in Christ! Those phrases, “there’s life in the roots” and “our roots run deep” have so much meaning as a Christian. God let me know through His Word then and even now that as Christians, our roots in Him run deep!
- Isaiah tells us that “a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit” (Isaiah 11:1). Isaiah is describing the rise of the Messiah (Jesus Christ) and His righteous reign over the earth. We are a product of that “shoot from the stump of Jesse,” and as a branch we will bear fruit.
- Believe that there is life in your roots and how deep they run as described by King David in the book of Psalms. You are “like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3). A growing Christian, whether a new believer or a seasoned saint, is like a healthy tree, whose roots are planted, nourished, and fruitful.
- Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians that “when Christ dwells in our hearts through faith,” we are “being rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17).
- As children of the most-high God, let us take hold of Paul’s words to the Colossians: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7).
I further learned that being rooted in Christ has many benefits:
- Stability: We are able to withstand the storms of life. We are like “a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).
- Continual nourishment: We have a deep source of spiritual nourishment which continually feeds us. “[The tree] extends its roots by a stream…[do] not fear when the heat comes; and [do] not be anxious in a year of drought [for its roots will not] cease to yield fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8).
- Joy: Jesus said, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:10–11).
- Fruitfulness: Rooted plants are fruit-bearing plants. “I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit” (John 15:5).
- Peace: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27). This peace is described as a “peace that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).
- Assurance of our salvation: God’s will for every believer is that we have absolute confidence in our salvation. God wants us to know that we will go to Heaven when we die. Rooted people know. “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession” (Ephesians 1:13-14).
- Spiritual growth: Only rooted people grow. We can’t grow up unless our roots go down. “…You, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge” (Ephesians 3:17–19). Our roots go down deep because “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
I pray it is God’s will for each of us to see these benefits as luscious fruit hanging from a sturdy tree whose roots run deep and strong. Grab hold of these fruits as they represent the substance that helps to ensure our roots are planted and grounded in God!
About those withered plants in Chicago, slowly their roots produced life and new leaves began to form. I never gave up on them, and God never gave up on me. He let me know there was life in my roots too. How? By showing me just how entrenched my roots were in Him as I grew in my service to Him there.
THERE IS LIFE IN THE ROOTS and they RUN DEEP in CHRIST! For Christ’s roots prove that in them there is power, purpose and yes, LIFE!
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