Last week, I had such an amazing experience – I keep going back to it in my mind again and again, and when I was thinking and praying about what to write today, that experience popped into my mind once again….
I was having a really hard day last week – struggling with something weighing far too heavily on my mind. I asked Ben, “How many times have I cried over this same issue?” He said, “Too many.” Too true.
As I sat there on my bed, praying and crying yet again about the issue I was struggling with, I kept getting this extremely clear picture in my mind of roots being pulled out of the ground. It was as though I saw this emotional pain as the physical pain of uprooting. I wanted desperately to be free of that nasty weed, but the roots were hanging on tight. Somehow, it seemed clear to me that I needed to go through the pain and uprooting, even if it would hurt for the time being, so the weed could be gone.
An hour later, I was reading to Anika from Matthew, and suddenly a verse jumped out at me:
“Jesus replied, ‘There are plants that my Father in heaven has not planted. They will be pulled up by the roots….'”
Jesus was talking about the Pharisees, so this was used in a completely different context, but it was so strange to read that verse after the crystal-clear picture I’d had earlier in my mind. Jesus was saying the Pharisees would be uprooted later, but for me in that moment, I felt as though that truth sunk in deeply – if God has not planted something, it must be uprooted.
I could actually feel the release of those roots slithering up from the soil of my life, and I kept thinking, “No matter how hard or painful, I want Him to pull it out. I want to learn to release the roots of what He has not planted.”
And something has changed in me. Every time I’m tempted to go back into that place of pain and sorrow over the issue I was struggling with, and return to that weight I keep insisting on dragging with me, I picture those roots being pulled up. I keep surrendering the issue to God, and asking Him to teach me how to release it.
Is there anything needing to be uprooted in your life?
Ordinary Days 