Roots

In March of 1993 our family was making its way down to a much anticipated holiday in Florida only to be ambushed by what was called “The Storm of the Century”, a blizzard that smothered the entire Eastern part of the USA. We actually made it through the worst of the storm in the Northern leg only to end up stranded on I-75 in Cleveland, Tennessee. The only moving traffic was Bubba and the boys packed into rustic 4X4s with gun racks in the back windows, yahooing around and through hundreds of vehicles stranded in the seldom-seen snowfall. Not to downgrade the effect of the storm or demean the efforts of those charged with clearing the roadways, the truth is that if it wasn’t for the seeming lack of preparedness and inexperience of our southern hosts we would have made it through the 6-8 inches of snow, which for many of us was a somewhat normal occurrence growing up. However the people weren’t only the ones unprepared.

As we inched our way south we began to see evidence of biological trauma. Hundreds of coniferous trees that once proudly lined the roadside were now laying prone on the ground literally uprooted. The weight of the wet snow was too much for the unprepared plants to take and their shallow bases gave way to the pressure. As I recall that image I wonder how many people are like those trees?

In good times many people fall prey to the temptation to live like there is no tomorrow, and if even there is a tomorrow they seem to think that it will be just as good if not better than today. However this latest recession has proven the foolishness of that shallow way of thinking and living.

I also notice that in good times the spiritual sensitivity and activity of people becomes shallow and God becomes an afterthought if a thought at all. The majority of people just seem to take the good life and God for granted as if we deserve it. Even many churched people, who lay claim to some modicum of spirituality, take extended summer breaks from regular worship as if it was their inalienable God-given right to do so. Somehow I don’t think that when God said to keep the Sabbath holy He meant four months away from church in the summer and whenever the mood hit the rest of the year.

There are any number of consequences that flow out of shallow spirituality but one that inevitably and subtly catches people is that the more they distance themselves from spiritual responsibility and fellowship, the shallower their biblical roots and the less resilient they are to life’s challenges. As such when tough times come, many people are overwhelmed to the point that they become uprooted casualties of casual comfortable Christianity, not unlike the snow-covered pines trees we saw lining I-75. There they lay often-questioning God’s faithfulness when in reality he wasn’t the one who was unfaithful or unprepared.

But the even sadder consequence is that the children of comfortable and casual Christians often do not develop biblical roots of their own and often wander aimlessly through life unprepared for hardship and unprepared to meet God when life comes to an end.

I have some others thoughts on roots that I will share in my next instalment.