Digging Up Roots, by Richard French
April 12, 2020
In our backyard there was a row of Red Tip trees planted about twenty years ago as a hedge between our property and the neighbor’s property. Every spring the trees displayed beautiful red leaves with white flowers. Over the last few years the Red Tips contracted a blight and slowly began to die. Eventually all the trees died leaving only scraggly dead limbs. So we had them cut down and removed. The tree service which removed the trees had a stump grinder and ground up the stumps and roots. However, they missed a few. And over the last few days as I planted new trees and shrubs in that same area where the Red Tips had been, I encountered those missed stumps and roots.
What could be seen on the surface were just stumps; the remains of what were once beautiful trees. In various spots along the ground around the stumps were little green shoots of new growth springing up. I decided to dig up the stumps and roots to clear them away for the new shrubs and trees which I planted. With shovel and pick axe I dug, chopped, and pulled at the stumps and roots. It was hard work digging up the stumps and roots; repeatedly swinging the pick axe over and over, then digging around the roots and stumps with the shovel, then back to swinging the pick axe. Sweat dripped in my eyes and off my brow. More than once I thought “This is too much work. Why not just leave them alone?” But I would take a break, catch my breath, get a drink of water, enjoy a cool breeze which Jesus would send and then go back to digging.
After much hard work on one particularly tough stump, the roots were finally out of the ground! That small stump had some very large roots; larger than would be expected for the size of the stump. The main two roots from the stump were twisted and turned in 90degree bends. They spanned at least six feet out from the stump. All the new sprouts that were visible above ground came from the buried roots.
Jesus used that experience to show me that we have to dig out the roots in ourselves. It is not enough to just remove the visible outward sign (the dead trees) but we must get to the root of the issue. Otherwise something will spring up again stemming from the root and try to flourish and reclaim life. It may be in another visible form or a different location from the original tree, but when the root is left intact it will re-grow again. We must first recognize and acknowledge there is a root that needs digging up. And it can be uncomfortable work digging out a deep-seated root that may have been there for a long time. We might have to rub elbows and sharpen iron with one another in the process. And Jesus will help us with cool Jesus used that experience to show me that we have to dig out the roots in ourselves. It is not enough to just remove the visible outward sign (the dead trees) but we must get the root refreshing breezes and encouragement along the way for as long as we continue to work on the root. But when the root is removed it’s gone, and no new sprouts will ever come from that root again.
This experience brought back memories as a youth working on my grandfather’s farm. I chopped and hoed many weeds in his fields. My grandfather would say that it’s not just enough to cut off the top of the weeds with the hoe as the roots will re-grow a new plant. And even pulling up the roots leaving them partially in the soil or even touching the soil would not do. You had to pull up the weeds with the roots and flip them over so the roots were exposed to the SUN in order to dry up and completely kill the roots. That feels like what the LORD is wanting us to do. Dig up the long-buried roots in ourselves and fully expose them to the SON so he can completely heal us!