"...so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith -- that you, being rooted and grounded in love,..."
- Ephesians 3:17
"That you being rooted and grounded in love..." I almost always think of this passage in the image of a tree, a metaphor made widely known throughout the Bible; however, it was only recently, at the dentist that I found this verse to hit me with a fresh impact.
I have horrible teeth. However teeth can be bad - soft, sensitive, stained, clenching, grinding - I have that. I truly don't know what all causes them to have such proclivity to all teeth ailments, but nonetheless they have them all. I often brace myself - mentally, emotionally, and financially -- for the dentist, not because I'm scared of dentists but simply because 8 out of 10 times, something is wrong. Nevertheless, for the second to third time in my life, something good came of the dentist recently.
I was sitting in the chair as they took new x-rays. The hygienist noted how my teeth had worn down from the grinding and clenching (a new fun trick I've picked up in my sleep to make my dental history cheaper and more exciting) but then she said "You have such long roots though. At least you have good roots."
I sat there, with wire contraptions hanging out of my mouth and x-rays beaming into it and I asked her (in some form of English, bordering the bad-cell-reception and gauze-in-the-mouth dialects) "What does that mean?"
She said "You have deep roots. When you have deep roots, that means they're strong roots, so you can sustain impact much longer than if you have short roots." My first thought was "Thank you God that you made me with deep [dental] roots. Something is finally good about my teeth." I immediately thought I could put that crown off a little bit longer cause my teeth could withstand it. But then it clicked, "You being rooted and grounded in love..." "The longer you can sustain impact."
We all face trials and I know for me personally, "consider it all joy my brothers," is not usually the first thing to come to my mind in these cases. But this brief interchange with my hygienist shed a whole new light. Perhaps we experience prolonged trials not because we're being punished or God is trying us, but because he knows how long our roots are and he knows we can sustain the hardship - even if we feel like we're at our absolute end.
Romans 5 says, "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame." The deeper our roots in him, the more impact we can withstand, thus, the more trials we may see, but this impact, over time, produces hope of all things, which will not fail us.
This seems to me like hope from the strangest of places, but it also gives a new perspective to hope. Hope is not some fluffy, naive thing, but rather the outcome of hard work and strength of character. Hope is belief for things unseen, built by enduring life with the Lord over and over again.
I pray deeper roots for each of you along with myself. May trials no longer feel like burdens but words of encouragement. May we be rooted and grounded. May we have the purest and strongest hope.
