At the Root of It All

This morning, Coralyn and I were examining her bag of beans that we had placed in the window.  Just like Daddy's students at school, we are experimenting to see if the beans will grow into a plant without any soil.  We put the beans in a ziploc bag with a wet paper towel and then set the bag in the kitchen window where it can get some sunshine each day.  So far, just one bean has broken up and has a very small shoot starting.  As we were talking about what plants need to live, I mentioned the beans will grow in the bag for a bit but won't be able to survive for very long because they don't have any soil.  Coralyn immediately had a solution to that problem, "Mommy, let's just go outside and dig and dig and dig and put the dirt in the bag for the beans.  Then they will grow!"

As are most elementary teachers, I am quite familiar with the beans in a bag experiment, but I had never heard of this twist of adding soil to the bag to see how that would affect the growth of the beans.  We might just have to try it out to see!  I'm pretty sure the beans still wouldn't thrive like they would if they were planted in the ground, where the roots can spread out and continue to get nourishment day after day.

I was doing my best to explain this to Corlayn in a way that her three-year-old brain could comprehend, and of course, as I was talking, God spoke to me, reminding me of an important lesson I needed to learn.  Relearn, really.

And as usual, this lesson is quite fitting with where I am in life and some of the events that have happened recently.

In telling Coralyn how plants must be in soil to live so their roots can go down deep in the ground to get the water and nutrients they need, God instantly brought to my mind these verses:

"I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources [God] will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit.  Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust Him.  Your roots will grow down in God's love and make you strong.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, how deep His love is."

~Ephesians 3:16-18

This verse, and the lessons from it, are extremely applicable, for several reasons:

*I just wrote a blog post about the importance of living out my faith, of bearing fruit that gives evidence of my love for God and confident trust in Him.

*Two weeks ago our house was sold; then came the inspection.  The potential buyers decided a crack in the wall was just too much for them, despite our efforts to assure them it was not a foundation issue.  To confirm our belief, we had a structural engineer come to the house.  His official report: our neighbor's oak tree is to blame.  Due to the lack of rain, the tree's roots have crept under our driveway and all the way through our yard.  Consequently, our driveway has some dips and cracks.  Our house has some minor cracks too, but nothing structurally wrong and don't even require fixing.  We just need some rain, and then the soil will get back to normal, after which the cracks will nearly disappear!

*Just now, as I was typing out the passage in Ephesians, something else stuck out to me in addition to the part about the roots.  The verse before and after were just what I needed to hear as I battle frustration, discouragement, confusion, impatience, and even anger as we wait for our house to sell again and try to figure out what God is doing through all of this.  Inner strength from God's Spirit is something I could definitely use right about now.  Not to mention, the power to understand the extent of God's love for me, assuring me that He is indeed doing what is best for us and will work everything out so much better than we could even dare to dream or imagine!

Last night, Lawrence and I had yet another conversation trying to sort out our thoughts and emotions in regards to our house situation.  We are struggling to understand what exactly God is up to: 

Is He telling us we're not supposed to sell our house after all?

Is He letting us know we need to be patient and wait because He has something better, later?

Is He testing our faith to see if we will stay strong and keep trusting Him, even when things are hard?

On top of that, we are trying to determine how much effort we should put into fixing up the house and making it more marketable.  We like our house and have worked hard to make it our home.  When we hear the suggestion to paint our walls, we take it somewhat personally (even though we know Jay and the other realtors aren't meaning to hurt our feelings or anything of the sort!).  So, to "have" to go and paint over what we like just to make our house more appealing to a potential buyer is disheartening.  BUT, I guess it's part of the process too.  Harder than we expected, I guess.  We have come to love our home and moving and saying good-bye to this place is going to be difficult.  We have so many memories here.  Yes, we will make new memories in our new house.  Yes, we will eventually make that house our HOME.  Right now, though, at this very moment, my heart is torn and starting to break.

Good thing God reminded me this morning: 

Christ will make His home in your hearts 

as you trust Him.

Yet, again, something I wasn't focused on when I thought of the verse.  Originally, I was making the connection with the bean experiment and the need for roots.  Yes, I need to make my roots go down deep into God and get my nourishment from Him.  Only then will I have the strength to live for Him, to obey Him no matter what, to trust Him even when I don't understand what's going on in my life.  God has blown me away, as is His custom.  As a result of my coming to Him, weak and weary, admitting my desperation and complete need for Him, God whispers:

"I will give you strength, MY strength."

"I love you, more than you will ever know.  Don't ever doubt my love."

"I am your home.  No matter where you live, I am your home."

Who cares what color our living room or kitchen walls are?  In light of eternity, it simply does not matter.  What does matter is that people know Jesus personally. And that is the reason why we are moving -- to make Jesus known in the Kellybrook area.  If we have to paint our walls to sell our house so we can move, then so be it.  If painting our walls will eventually help kids and their families come to know and trust Jesus, then bring on the paint!  

As we paint later this week, I am going to tell myself with each stroke of the brush that I am doing this so more people will experience the depth of God's love, so they too can invite Christ to "make His home in their hearts as they trust Him."

That right there is the root of it all!