The Root of the Matter

Spring is here!  And even though it was greeted locally with about a half-inch of snow, that does not change the fact that Winter has been shown the door, sentence has been handed down, its demise has been determined.

It has been a Winter for the record books to be sure with its extended periods of bitterly cold temperatures, frequent bouts of snow and, record accumulations.  The Polar Vortex had psychologically devastating effects on many who laboriously trudged on and yet languished under the daily drudge of dismal meteorological prophecies fulfilled.  I cannot recall any previous Winter in my experience when I have heard so many meteorologists make so many apologies, nor so many people crying out so often for the end of Winter and the arrival of Spring.  “Will Spring ever get here?”  “Will this Winter ever end?”

Even the tree roots, I am told, have been impacted by the unprecedented depths to which the frozen ground descended, rupturing water and gas mains in its path.  And yet, the deepest roots never doubted the arrival of Spring!  They were unaffected by the howling winds of Winter carrying sleet and snow and plunging wind chill temperatures.

I find comfort in the fact that, in the spiritual realm, having deep roots will also protect one from the effects of life’s howling winds of trouble, difficulty and even disaster.  The key, however, is the location of those deep roots.

Where are your roots?  If they are plunged, even deeply, into the world’s values and philosophies, or the devising of your own efforts, you will be disappointed.

Colossians 2.6-8: “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,  having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.…”

Ephesians 3.17-19 “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

My life has been one in which I have repeatedly endured howling winds which left me battered and bruised, bewildered and bent.  I expect more of the same in the future.  Such storms are to be expected as a natural part of life in a fallen world.  There is a great resilient strength to be found, however, in being firmly and deeply rooted in Christ and God’s Word.  While others around me are being destroyed by the wintry storms of life for lack of such strength, I have never doubted the arrival of Spring.

In the midst of life’s Winters I am able to rejoice in the certain anticipation that ultimately I’ll be living in the land of eternal Spring.  How about you?