I’m not a gardener nor have I ever been accused of having a green thumb, or even a slightly teal one. I’m more likely to forget a plant exists than remember to water it, but I do like watching them grow. There are so many incredibly beautiful plants in this world! I love all the different shades of green, the way some flowers are vividly bright and others more subtle, how spiny cacti can have the most stunning flowers and how the tiniest of buds can have such perfect details.
But no matter what type of plant it is, they all have one thing in common – whether it’s a little or a lot, they all need water. Yup, someone’s gotta water them.
I don’t think I did it often (sorry Mum!) but I remember watering plants when I was a young child. I used to love the way the leaves looked when they were wet, so shiny and glossy. I’d put a lot of effort into making sure every leaf on the particular plant was wet because that’s how I’d know it was done. Feel like I should apologise to Mum again for all the plants I likely killed telling her I’d watered them when all I’d actually done was clean the leaves. It took me way longer than I should admit to realise that it was the roots I should have been watering.
Yup, somehow I missed that vital point. It’s from the roots and soil that the plant grows, not its leaves. Sure, there are some plants which capture water in their leaves to send down to the roots but not the trees I was watering. A plant might look really pretty with shiny, glossy leaves but it’s never going to grow if you don’t water the roots.
Same as us.
It’s easy to look all glossy and shiny on the outside, going to church, looking the part and saying all the right things. Believe me, I know. I’ve done it. There was one period of my life in particular when I went to church twice every Sunday, was a passionate youth leader, was even doing a full-time course at Bible college – and wasn’t even sure I liked God let alone believed he cared about me. I certainly didn’t trust him. I stopped reading my Bible, convinced it was full of lies and did my best to shut God out entirely*. I didn’t tell anyone this, of course. On the outside, it probably looked like nothing had changed. My leaves were nice and shiny but inside, my roots were dry, if not dead.
They needed water. They needed better soil. They needed me to start actively pulling out the weeds stopping them from flourishing.
In a practical sense, I needed to be reading my Bible every day. For myself and not because others were watching. I needed to be filling my mind with and reminding myself of God’s promises rather than listening to the doubts and fears trying to take over. I needed to be honest with God about my frailties and trust that he was big enough to handle them – and wanted to.
Some days it’s easier to do all that than others. I’ve found since getting married and having kids, I’ve had to change a lot of the ways I do that. It was really easy to make time for God and reading the Bible when I was a teenager with very few responsibilities. I was never all that great at reading in the mornings but used to love spending half an hour or more with God every night before bed. Nights are a bit crazier these days with four other people vying for that time but I’ve recently come to love getting up half an hour earlier and doing Bible study then and just doing a short devotional before bed. It’s taken me a while to figure it out (um, close to a decade...) but right now, that's what works for me.
Maybe you're like me and mornings before everything gets crazy are the best times, maybe another time works better for you. Whenever it is, I challenge you to find it. Figure out what works for you. Figure out how you can best strengthen and water your roots so that you’re going deep into God. Because you, like me, need it. Especially on those days when doubts and fears swirl like a storm around us. It's God's promises and faithfulness which will keep you strong.
And the thing is, the more you water those roots, the better everything else will grow too. That’s the wondrous thing about watering the roots of a plant. When the roots are strong and deep, the tree thrives. And the leaves are glossy too ;)
Find that time and place each day where it is just you and God. Fight for it. Treasure it. Whether it’s ten minutes or two hours, it’s worth it. Every plant needs water to grow and every God-follower needs God.
Come Living Water.
*For the record, it didn’t work and, six months later, I gave up and grudgingly toddled back to God, admitting that, while I still wasn’t sure I trusted him, I couldn’t live without him. Easily the best decision I ever made! Finding that closeness I'd lost didn't come the second I turned back, there were still a lot of doubts and things I still had to work through, but we got there. I love that God let me go through that time because I'm so much closer to him now because of it.
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