By Charlene Ryerson
… that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, Ephesians 5:26 NKJV
…looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by this many become defiled; Hebrews 12:15 NKJV
Observation: When saturating oneself with God’s Word it makes it easier for Him to reach into our hearts and pull out those deep roots.
Application: At one point in my life I had enrolled in a program. Usually the participants are trying to get clean of drugs and alcohol. However, they accepted me under some pretty unusual circumstances. Though I was a born-again Christian, I would repeatedly get involved in romantic relationships that ended quite drastically. I became suicidal every time I caught my boyfriend cheating on me. Same old story over and over. I just couldn’t get my walk with the Lord on track because some guy would come into my life and I would worship him instead of the Lord.
Part of the program was ‘discipline’, every time you left something out in your room that should have been put away, not only would your item be confiscated, but you would get 15 minutes of discipline for every item left out. And if you left out 4 items you would lose your Saturday outing with the other girls in the program. My discipline was usually weeding because the counselors knew I hated it. I don’t like anything to do with a garden.
Wouldn’t you know that one day I was being disciplined and they put me in the garden to weed? I was angry! To top it off, someone had left the hose on in the garden and the mud was at least 5 inches thick. The counselor told me to stop grumbling and ask the Lord to teach me a lesson instead. As I began to pull the weeds I was surprised to find that it led to this vine which eventually led to a root. Because that garden had been saturated with water I was able to get to the root system of the weeds and pull the whole thing out. I would not have been able to do that if the ground had been hard and dry. Then the Lord opened my eyes to this lesson: When I saturate the hardened ground of my heart with God’s Word it becomes pliable. He can then easily reach into my heart and pull out those deep roots of anger, bitterness, rage, lust, etc. that is choking the fruit from bearing in my life. I could imagine His loving hand reaching into my heart and uprooting all the negative junk that was there. My responsibility was to read His Word and obey it.
Prayer: Lord, continue to weed out the bad as we saturate the deep roots in our lives by reading Your word.