During the final days of last winter, I did some of the hardest work in my backyard that I’ve ever done.
First, I spent some time in our garden beds. We had two enormous hydrangea bushes crowding the beds like Jabba the Hutt crowding his court. You could almost call them hydrangea trees. They were enormous! They had outgrown their space and needed to be removed. I figured it would take about 30 minutes. I mean, how hard can it be to dig out some flowers?
It took three days!
The root systems of those hydrangea plants reached deeper and wider than I ever imagined they might. I literally had to get out my pickaxe in order to dig deep enough into the earth to pull the plants out. And even after I pulled the plants out, they were so large and heavy I could not drag them to the curbside for pickup by city sanitation. I had to get my axe out and chop them into pieces!
These hydrangea plants had withstood scorching summer sun and torrential winter winds and rain. How? Because they were rooted. They had enormous roots. And those deep roots allowed them to withstand almost anything.
The second thing I attended to in the backyard during the winter was our deck. We had an above ground pool that was rusting and leaking, so I took it apart and got rid of it. But this left a very large wooden deck which surrounded half the pool. I didn’t want to get rid of it myself. So I advertised on Craigslist that if anyone wanted it they could have it, for free. All they had to do was come and get it.
Thankfully, a family did just that. They took the whole thing. But they did not take the posts on which the deck was fixed. There were nine very large wooden posts buried deep in the ground and nestled in cement. The entire deck was founded on these posts. And when the family took the deck they managed to pull up three of those posts but they left the other six. It took me hours of backbreaking work to dig out those posts.
This deck had withstood withering summer heart and fierce winter winds and rains for years. How? Because it was grounded. It was built on firm and stable ground. And thus, it could handle just about anything.
Jesus uses these same two concepts in his teaching: rooted and grounded.
First Jesus tells a parable about a farmer who goes out to plant seeds (Matt.13) At one point he describes seeds that were sown on dry and hard soil. The sun comes out. It is scorching! And the seeds are not able to survive. They are burnt by the sun:
5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where there was not enough dirt. It grew very fast there, because the soil was not deep. 6 But when the sun rose, it burned the plants. The plants died because they did not have deep roots.(Matt. 13:5-6 ERV)
The seed perished. Why? Because it was not rooted. The only way to weather the withering sun is to be deeply rooted.
Second Jesus tells a parable which is sung by children in churches about a man who wants to build a house (Matt. 7). The man is trying to decide where to build his house. He might build it on a space which is quite sandy. Or he might build it on a space which is rock solid. Eventually he builds it on the rock. And that house is able to withstand the strongest storm:
It rained hard, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not fall because it was built on rock. (Matt. 7:25 ERV)
The house withstood the storm. Why? Because it was grounded. If you hope to handle the hard rains, you’ve got to be fixed to something solid.
Jesus is saying that when the scorching sun of life burns or the torrential storms of life flood, what is most needed is a way to root and ground ourselves so that we can survive and thrive.
And, he’s saying this rooting and grounding is possible. It’s a reality we can experience.
This is so important to believe. During the Covid-19 crisis, it can be easy to feel ungrounded and uprooted. So much of our “normal” has changed. So much feels unfixed and uncertain. Yet … it is possible to have a groundedness and a fixed-ness that allows you to endure this emergency. In this mini-series within the “Shelter in Place” series, we’ll explore how to be grounded and rooted in ways that truly matter.
