The survivors of
Judah’s family who have escaped will put down roots and bear fruit above.
Isaiah 37:31
Fruit does not come without good roots. The outward signs
of discipleship result from putting down good roots in the love of Christ as
Paul says in Ephesians 3:17-19: I
ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having
strong roots in love, I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s
width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask
that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will
be filled entirely with the fullness of God.
If you have ever had a potted plant, whether a houseplant
or a potted flower, vegetable or herb for your garden, you are familiar with root
bound plants. When a plant cannot spread its roots because it is confined to a
pot too small for it, the roots will grow more and more entangled. If the plant
gets too root bound, it dies. Even if a root bound plant is planted where the
roots can spread, the damage may already be too great to reverse. I have pulled
up dead plants in my garden only to discover that the roots had never recovered
from being root bound. The problem with
a root bound plant is that the damage is not visible from looking at the plant.
In the church, we often put more emphasis on the fruit
than the roots. We encourage service, generosity and hospitality. We send
people on mission trips and recruit greeters and feed and clothe the poor in
our communities. We serve on church committees and teach Sunday school and sing
in the choir. All these are fruits. But without a good root system, the fruits
dry up due to burnout, or lose their sweetness due to resentment or become
diseased and poisonous due to lack of faith. With little attention given to the
roots, the fruits are no longer beneficial. Like a root bound plant, the damage
may not be visible to the casual observer.
How much time do you give to reading the Word, praying
the Word and living the Word? Does study of scripture and sacred texts happen
for you on a daily basis at a regular time and place? Do you give your best
attention each day to growing in intimacy with God, or is your attention
haphazard and irregular?
When I hear people talk of being burned out on “church
work,” I know that they have failed to attend to the roots. When I hear someone
mispronounce a common Biblical name, it saddens me because they are missing out
on the joys of familiarity with God through the scripture. When I see church
leaders anxious and fearful, I sense that their roots are shallow and weak.
In many churches, much time is spent talking about how to
increase numbers of members and contributions. We look at fruit, but we fail to
devote attention to the roots. We talk more about evangelism and relevance than
we do about spiritual formation, which is how our roots are made strong. We
give our attention to doing
rather than being, falling
headlong into our Western belief that productivity is king.
The church will continue to suffer as long as its members
focus only on fruit. Passion for God can be ignited through service, but it
cannot survive without becoming rooted, which is the work of spiritual
formation. It is the heart, our passion for Christ, which produces healthy,
fruitful service. When Christ is everything to us, then fruit cannot be
restrained.
