My knowledge is limited in the area of trees, but I did I little bit of reading into the root system of trees. Why the roots? Because I wanted to know how is it that trees grow, how they are fed, and what allows a tree to remain healthy in order to compare it to the Christian life.
The roots of trees really don’t go very deep. As I was reading I came across this study.
“Orjan Stahl, a tree researcher in Stockholm, made an exhaustive study of over 500 trees that had root and utility conflicts. He regularly found roots at depths of 7 to 9 feet (2.1 to 2.7 meters) and the deepest root he encountered was at 23 feet (7 meters)...They found numerous examples of trees reported to be growing roots to over 33 feet (10 meters), and one report of a tree that grew roots to a depth of 174 feet (53 meters).”
Apparently, the trees roots can grow as much as possible as long as the conditions are right. Conditions such as water, oxygen and soil compaction (the soil condition).
Rooted in Christ
Paul’s desire for the Ephesian church is that they understand and experience Christ’s love and be filled with the fullness of God.
The New International Version Chapter 3
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God
Isn’t that something good to wish upon someone else? When have you ever heard anybody tell someone else something like this?
In order to have power, in order to grasp the width and the depth of Christ’s love and in order to know that this is love is beyond our knowledge, we must be rooted and established in love.
Root ????? - botanical term. How trees are strengthened to remain upright
Established ?eµe???? - an architectural term which means foundation upon which something else is built.
We need to be rooted (go deep) and be strong enough to build the structure of our lives.
Paul desires that together with the church members that together we grasp how wide, long, high and deep is Christ’s love.
Spiritual growth is not just a personal relationship with Christ. We are rooted in Christ and established in love, but in order to continue to have true power we need to grow together. In order to grasp the width, length, height and depth of God, we need each other to understand this.
A common question people ask or something that they say is,
“Do I need the church in order to be saved?
What they are really asking if they need to go to church to be saved… or do they need to be part of a community of believers in order to heaven?
The Message of Ephesians c. Knowing Christ’s Love
The isolated Christian can indeed know something of the love of Jesus. But his grasp of it is bound to be limited by his limited experience. It needs the whole people of God to understand the whole love of God, all the saints together, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, young and old, black and white, with all their varied backgrounds and experiences
As we experience life together we are more aware of how much more there is to love. When we share in each other’s burdens and share our lives together we learn more about love.
When you are single you understand love as love to family and friends
When you “fall in love” you understand another dimension of love you didn’t know about
When you have kids you enter into a very different dimension of love that you didn’t know about.
When you are a grandparent you enter into a different level of love and so on.
Likewise for Christians, you can know something of God’s love alone, but you won’t understand and experience God’s love in a deeper sense if you stop there.
Why? You gather people who have agreed that Jesus is Savior and Lord, that He is coming again, that all 10 commandments are important, that we have a mission to make disciples. We come together to worship God as a collective body and sit next to people who are imperfect just like me but have a desire to serve, learn, grow. That’s the ideal reality, but we also grow when we have to deal with difficult situations, when we disagree, when we have to have those difficult conversations. Where else could we learn these life lessons if not in a “safe” environment where we are here to encourage, support, one another? The church is to be the training ground for life.
The problem is that we expect perfection or we take things personal and do not allow the difficult situations to be moments for growth and we decide to make them reasons for division.
We may not believe it, but as Paul says in Ephesians, this love surpasses knowledge, which means that this is not a matter of what you know or think. In order to have this it needs to be experienced in the c?ommunity?.
“Redwood trees have shallow root systems that extend over one hundred feet from the base, intertwining with the roots of other redwoods. They like to live next to each other as families and intertwine their roots with each other. One might think that a 106 meter (350 feet) tall tree would need deep roots, but that’s not the case at all with the Redwood. Redwoods are able to reach such great heights in part due to tight tree groupings (tree families.) The roots may only grow down 1.5 to 4.5 meters (5 to 15 feet) but they branch outward to find buddies. They interlock roots in this group which allows for much more stability, as well as nutrient exchange. A Redwood’s roots can extend up to 30 meters (100 feet) from the trunk.”
Christian maturity comes from alone time with God, deepening those roots with God - Scripture, Prayer.
Christian maturity also comes along with time with humanity, spreading out our roots with people - ministry, service.
Many Christians have deep roots but do not branch outwards, interlock their lives with others which gives us more stability and we are “fed”.
On the other hand many have roots that extend all around, but are not deep rooted in God. In Christian life the example of the tree is for us to have both.
Deep Roots and Extended Roots - we are to be like the cedar and the redwood.
We are stronger when we spend time with God
We are stronger together when we worship together
We are stronger together when we sing and pray together
We are stronger together when we eat together
We are stronger together when we go out to the community to share the love of Christ.
We are stronger together when we go out and help those who are in need.
We are stronger together when we work together
We are stronger when we keep in touch, visit the sick, encourage the discouraged, open our hearts and our homes.
We are stronger when we have the same hope, the same Lord, the same faith
We are stronger when we love each other even when we disagree.
We are stronger when we are weak, for God is our strength and he is glorified.
So I join Paul in his prayer and desire for Christians. His prayer was for us to be rooted and established in love to God and to one another so that we may know, grow and go.
Know who God is
Grow up to his likeness
Go make disciples
