Meet my favorite tree.
If you look closely you’ll see that only half this tree’s trunk is present, and there’s no middle inside. Still, it bears leaves every year, and its branches stretch higher and higher.
Against the odds, this deformed tree is strong because of its roots.
Every time I see it, I am reminded of the resiliency God forms in us when we’re rooted in Him.
In Colossians 2:6-7, the Apostle Paul tells those he is writing to – and us too all these years later – “just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Rooted and built up in Christ.
That’s what we’re meant to be. Why?
Because, as Paul addresses throughout his letter, we face all sorts of threats to our growth. Like the Colossians, we face temptations to follow false teachings, give in to sin, and forego peace in all sorts of relationships.
Besides using the metaphor of “rooted,” Paul repeats words to the Colossians like “firm,” “strengthened,” and “continue.”
He knows, as we do, that there are all sorts of things that can cause us to lose “connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow” (Colossians 2:19.)
If you can’t tell, Colossians is one of my favorite books in the Bible, and my favorite tree matches. I am grateful for all that Paul warns about and calls us to persevere in, and how he brings us back again and again to who we’re rooted in.
Continue your lives in him.
Rooted and built up in him.
As God causes it to grow.
Earlier, in Colossians 1:15-20, there’s a description all about Jesus being the fullness of God, that in him all things were created and are held together, and that he reconciles us to God.
When I am feeling the pressures and pushing of temptation and hardship, and I’m finding it hard to be resilient, this is what I come back to.
We are rooted and built up in him, but as my favorite tree demonstrates, it’s the roots that hold the tree upright. It’s Jesus who holds all things together. Including us.
Just as we received Christ as Lord by his grace, it’s in continually receiving his grace we keep growing. Our roots in him are strong because he is.