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i take them for granted more often than not, but when i take the time to mull over their stature and their form, i am fascinated by trees.

take something small. vulnerable. surround it in an environment that it is designed to thrive in: all the right nutrients and support it needs. it digs deep with roots it needs to attain adequate energy from the ground, and slowly… it grows. sprouts. shoots up, and begins to gather more energy, now from the sun. its whole existence is wrapped up in reaching higher and closer to the sunbeams it feeds on, and as it grows up—it also grows down, plunging roots deeper still.

and eventually, there’s fruit. the next generation of tree, the genetic striving the little flora has been after all along.

i see and contemplate the tree, and i see myself. i see us. i see the human condition.

i often shrug off (or outright avoid) the hokey inspirational shots of tree-filled meadows, glades or forests that somehow tote loosely tied-in quotes, scripture or encouragement in the corner of the frame. the process of tree growth—though more difficult to capture in a single image—now that’s what i find holy.

from this fascination, i come to a question that i find i ought to ask of anyone i truly care about, and i’d give the advice to anyone whose eyes happen across these words to ask this question of those they invest emotional fondness in as well:

where are your roots?

and then: how deep are they? where’s your energy source? are you working to grip deeper into that earth? is it even the right soil the tree of your story needs to be drawing from, or is a transplant in order?

i’m certain many will ready this and consider, “well i don’t really think i’m ‘rooted’ per se, i am much more of a take-it-as-it-comes, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants or go-where-the-wind-takes-me kind of person.” false.

again, i say false. it is the way we work—call it design, call it evolutionary structure, call it a need for consistency in a human life. the fact remains this: we all have roots. the matter is where they find a base.

the soil available in this day and age is abundant and diverse. where will you derive your nutrients, the stuff that will make you grow and give you energy?

money. family. awards. knowledge. adventure. control. recognition. victory. creativity. physical thrill. nature. beating the next guy. these and untolds more fuel any average American today.

but which of this makes me grow, truly? am i fulfilled? do i grow naturally, beneficially for my own existence? or do i twist and warp and deform my purpose and the best way of living life to occupy the soil that I think is best, that I see fit?

the human spirits comes equipped with roots, roots meant for a loving relationship with a radical King and Father that shaped us as such. Paul attests to this idea, using the concept of slavery rather than botany:

“do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience [to the Lord], which leads to righteousness. but thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart…and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:16-18)

in this excerpt, we see the truth of our own lived experiences: we present ourselves as slaves when we make ourselves vulnerable to something—when we send down roots into something. even if that “something” is our own selves, our own will.

the scary part is this: Paul draws a pretty definitive, divinely-inspired line here. either you get death from planting your life in sin (aka anything but God’s will for your life, aka anything except God), or your get life and goodness and the way things were meant to be by planting yourself, your hopes, your dreams and goals and aspirations and fears and worries and headaches and wonder and awe in a God who fashioned all those very things in your soul to begin with.

a return home. set to default. roots in their proper place.

Paul goes on in Romans chapter 6: “but what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (vs. 21-22).  

did that come in clear? when we lay down roots in anything but God, we end up feeling ashamed… the bury your head in your own misery, the sand, the pillowcase until you can’t hear the own disappointment in yourself shame. the “yes, it was me, i did that unthinkable evil, i stole the cookie from the cookie jar, i directly disobeyed just for the heck of it” kind of shame. we so often believe, “if i can just have this body/car/child/spouse/accomplishment/job/thing/entitlement, then everything will be great. yet when it’s for our own ends, when we live with roots on things below, we quickly run out of sufficient tree food for our souls. we tire. we fail. we buckle and break and cry and sigh and glance off into the horizon and wonder,

“really? this is what my life is about?”

indeed, a transplant is needed.

the ball’s entirely in our court. it always has been: in fact, God’s divinely-inspired author focused on the trees which symbolized how we plant our own roots today in the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:9). but that’s in the second part of verse nine—look at 9a: “And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” the source of our choice come from the Lord, and the ability to grow—regardless of what kind of tree we choose to be, regardless of what kind of roots we set—also comes from Him. the weight of this is incredible. it means that, even when we turn our back on God (“while we were yet still sinners…” Romans 5:8), even when we curse His name, He gives us the breath to do so.

incredible—radical—love.

and so each of us must make a choice: continue in deviance to the Ultimate Being and Loving Father, roots firmly planted in misery and self-affliction, or transplant our roots into His grace and love, watered into His Son’s death through baptism and living faithfully as we continually are shaped in trunk and branch to best receive the rays of His light.

that’s what makes us truly grow.

but this is not a one-time choice. look at what Christ says: “if anyone would come after me [aka if anyone would plant their roots in the right place and experience abundant life a la John 10:10], let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). because of Christ’s sacrifice, we get to choose where we plant our roots every moment of every day; it’s not a one-and-done thing, but a way of living.

this is why Jesus reminds us that we as spiritual trees will “bear fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15). and as our roots grow deeper in His love, our branches extend more and more to those lost and broken in the attractions of the world. with roots above in God Himself, we send our branches below, here on this earth, in the form of all the good fruits He has planned for us to yield (Galatians 5: 16-25). i imagine this image, an inverted tree with its roots in unseen glory of the Father and its branches bringing fruit to the barren world below, might display what Christ had in mind when he said, “you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. these things I command you, so that you will love one another” (John 15: 16-17).

Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption makes a similar philosophical remark on our growing nature as humans/spiritual trees. Red asserts: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” the statement rings true for our spirits each day we decide, consciously or otherwise, whether we’re growing our own tree with roots in Christ’s tree, the cross. there is no such thing as stagnant faith: our actions, our thoughts and our beliefs either grow or decay every day—just like a tree.

and how can we ever stop growing and learning and building rings, year in and year out, when we have a perfect example to strive toward (I John 2: 5-6)? we are designed, indeed expected, to grow; we see it in the parable of the barren fig tree (Luke 13: 6-9). no suspended animation allowed; as time marches on, so does the tree’s natural processes of growth. and we must march on too in our faith lives, whatever soil that faith is planted in, for better or worse, either “planted by streams of water” and “yield[ing] fruit in season” or “like chaff that the wind drives away” (Psalm 1: 1-4).

my hope and prayer is that we all take the time to observe and carefully identify those fruits that pop up in our lives and draw the connection back to the roots that make those fruits, good or bad, possible (Genesis 1:11; Matthew 12:33). from this, we might ask ourselves: how am i growing, or how am i decaying? where can i go back, count the rings of the trunk, and see where God has encouraged and pushed my growth? and is the fruit i produce leading to shame and pain, or life and glory in God?

may we always be rooted in the soil of our Father’s will, the only soil from which we can continually drink and tap without His love and providence running dry.