Rooted in Christ

I haven't posted in awhile and there's been a reason for that. But that's for another time.  On my heart right now is being rooted in Christ.  I was honored to be asked to speak at our church's women's retreat this last weekend and this was the subject.  I've never spoke publicly like that nor have I spoke in front of an audience about our journey with Ezra. I'm not a gifted speaker and I knew that. But I also knew after praying about it that this was something I was led to do.  Now today, two days after the fact, my mind has been flooded with things I wish I would have said or could have said or things maybe I shouldn't have said.  It's funny (but not really) how satan can plague you with doubt following anything you do for the Lord.  But that's okay, I'll write them down here instead, in the comforts of my home where he can attack but I can fiercely attack back.

I started writing my speech four times over the last month.  Spiritual warfare seemed to hit our home and every family member hard. My heart became hardened and discouraged as satan crept in and my mind became a jungle of messy vines intertwined not allowing me to think clearly. I knew I had to push through the frustration of not finding my flow of thoughts and words.  Since that day of the retreat one thing has kept coming back to me. The need of a relationship with God.  As I sat through the other sessions and took part in answering discussion questions with other women it was the one thing that they all had in common.  The four sessions were being rooted in community, rooted in prayer, rooted in bible study, and rooted in life. I spoke at the last one so I had the opportunity to listen to three other women speak powerful and meaningful things about the first three subjects. The common denominator was how each of those things built a relationship with God.  My talk was meant to loop all these things into what that looks like with how we live as Christians and I pray that it did just that.  But one thing I wish I would have done is spent more time emphasizing how much the end result of deepening our roots in each of those things impacts and has a direct correlation with our relationship with God. Really that's what God wants with all of us and all of those things are tools in which we do just that. Ephesians 3:16-19  says that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. What is the importance of prayer, reading scripture, and community?  So Christ will dwell in our hearts through faith that is built by growing our roots in all three of those things so that we experience God's love and have the strength to comprehend and understand the love that surpasses our own knowledge of how and why life works the way it does, especially when life is not going our way, so that we can be filled with God's fullness and that we can then overflow to others.  What we experienced when we did just that, specifically as we walked through Ezra's journey, is just what is says in Jeremiah 17:7-9 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots to the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and it is not anxious for a year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.  Having just moved across the country and not knowing anyone forced us to put our trust in the Lord.  We had to be obedient in that trust. Like a tree we had been planted by water, the living water of the Holy Spirit who rained down and we accepted as our salvation to make our seed sprout and begin the growth of our roots. Our roots have then been sent out to continue to absorb the Holy Spirit's love and build our relationship and therefore deepen our faith so that when the heat comes, such as struggles in life, we do not fear, and our plant can continue to remain green and strong.  Then when seasons of life have spiritual droughts, we do not become anxious over it and we continuously bear fruit in every season of life so that others around us can continue to grow and know our all loving God.  The result goes back to the beginning of this verse of being blessed when you do this. I've written in previous posts about how my eyes have been opened to what a true blessing is, something that's not always tangible, and this goes hand in hand with that. Blessed is referring to a man filled with God-defined benefits.  God-defined benefits being indescribable joy, peace, stability, love, faith, trust, fruitfulness, continuous nourishment, spiritual growth, stability, assurance of our salvation, and purpose.

Through our prayer life God grew us to trust him, especially with Ezra's life.  Through the book of Job, which we were going though the last half the pregnancy, it was revealed to us how the scripture that is thousands of years old can be applied, come alive, and can be used in our life and soon we learned how scripture is so much more then just reading stories and learning the history but that it is meant for us to get to know God and His ways more which results in deepening our relationship with him. Through the community that God opened the doors to in every place we have lived but specifically down in San Diego, since that is the time of life I am referring to here, who helped carry our burdens, people who were both near and far in miles but not in heart. Through those three things we get to know and experience who God is. Just as we get to know who are friends are, we get to know and love God more and more through conversations and experiences we share together with Him. 

Like roots of a tree, life is messy.  There are also going to be weeds that satan plants by our tree roots to try and take away our root's nutrients and stunt our growth, our growth as Christians. But despite the messiness and nasty weeds, when we have our core roots grounded we can continue to prosper, show God's love, and experience joy in all circumstances.  No matter how little or big the struggle is, when we are spiritually nourishing our roots the end result is what God desires us to be -- strong, healthy, and full of life so that we can have one major thing in our life.... a relationship with Him.