Rooted

A couple months ago it looked like we might be in for a bumper crop this year. Looks can be deceiving. We always have maintained that "it's not a bumper crop until it's in the bin."

We have beeen inundated with rain.  I think at last count it was up to around the 17 inch mark this growing season. Too much rain. With that "too much" comes disease and all kinds of other farming headaches.  Fusarium is rearing it's ugly head in the durum. And the excess rain is just not good on the lentils. That's what we're growing this year - durum and lentils. Also with the 'too much' rain comes too many weeds. I don't recall ever seeing the weeds like I have this year. Most, if not all, of the lentil crops are crazy with weeds. Our yard is overpowered by the nasty foliage. The ground is too wet to get out there with the rototiller and dig out those weeds. My garden boxes have sheltered awful weeds this year.  Some of them I've never seen before - the leaves of the worst ones are very prickly.  They really hurt if they accidently come in contact with my fingers. I have to grasp them close to, or even underneath the dirt surface, and yank on the roots. The roots come out fairly easy on those weeds. Some of the weeds in my flower bed at the gate are another story. On the surface those weeds don't appear menacing. Some of them are small. But the roots of those ones are huge.  Some of them need a shovel to dig out. Those roots spread all over. The weeds do not want to go anywhere.  The roots are firmly established.  But they are not invincible. 

This morning I was reading about a different kind of root - a life rooted in Christ and in His love.That is the kind of roots I need for everything in life. 

Proverbs 12:3 says "You can't find firm footing in a swamp,

but life rooted in God stands firm." 

Verse 12 in the same Proverb says, "what the wicked construct finally falls into ruin,

while the roots of the righteous give life, and more life..."

Life- more life! Abundant life! Jesus came to give us life. That promise is assured to me in John 10.After telling the Pharisees a simple story that they weren't able to understand, He said, "the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life - abundant life" 

What has the thief, or the enemy, come to steal and kill and destroy in your life? 

your happiness?

your joy?

your marriage?

your identity?

a loved one?

your bumper crop? 

I need my life to be rooted in Christ. I need Him as my anchor. Paul, in the book of Ephesians, prayed a beautiful prayer for the believers in Ephesus. It is my prayer for you.

"I pray that out of His (the Father) glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 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, and to know this love that surpasses knowlegde - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."