ROOTS OF LOVE

A recent article featured a conversation between two women. While one explained how easy it was to grow a houseplant from a clipping, tears pinched my eyes.

I’ve tried this, you see, with disastrous results. My latest failure was with an avocado pit.

I followed the instructions to a T! Careful to submerge its bottom, I used three toothpicks to prop the avocado pit in a glass of room-temperature water in a warm area. Once a week, I changed the water, replacing it with strictly room-temperature water. Then I watched and waited.

At some point, a root should have grown. For the pit and me, that significant event never occurred.

After the disappointing experience, my hubby gently uttered words of comfort. “Maybe plants aren’t your thing.” Gulp. You think?

Sometimes the truth, even spoken in a quiet, loving manner, stings. Could it be our roots aren’t deep enough and the rebuke, no matter how kind, eats at our core? Or is the problem one of expectations? Instead of failure, success and contentment-okay, and maybe a bit of praise-should have followed.

Elijah experienced a similar difficulty. After summoning the prophets of Baal to Mt. Carmel, Lord God Almighty gave a clear, victorious, and obvious answer that He alone is God. Then, with the appearance of a rain cloud, Elijah may have expected King Ahab and Queen Jezebel to acknowledge the One True and Living God. Perhaps they’d humble themselves and, who knows? Invite His prophet Elijah to dinner at the palace?  🙂

As the story unfolds, the queen didn’t send an invitation but a threat, and Elijah ran for his life. He ended up under a scruffy shrub, wishing he could die.

So, what went wrong? In the face of obvious truth, Elijah thought, wanted, hoped the king and queen would have a change of heart. Not an unreasonable expectation. But, as with my avocado pit, the overarching answer is that God is in control.

What does that mean for us today? We keep loving, we keep praying, we keep pointing the way to the cross. We cultivate our roots so they grow down deep, so that … “Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him.” So we’ll know, “feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself.” (Eph.3:17-19, NIV)

Written by Amre Cortadino

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Sherry Shindelar
Sherry Shindelar
3 years ago

Death threats and cold rain instead of a seven course meal, a robe, and a place by a warm fire. I can definitely understand how Elijah ended up under the shrub.

Thank you for your insight regarding our roots and how we need to grow them deep in Christ, so that the praise or disdain of this world will not sway us.

Patti Shene
3 years ago

Love this post, Amre! I am not a plant grower either. I have one that a friend brought by when I was recovering from my foot surgery. One side of it looks fairly decent, the other side is totally bare where the cat insists on attacking it!

All joking aside, your message is so important. We can spend our entire lives expecting outcomes that just are not in God’s plan. Thank you for sharing!

(And yes, Dave crossed my mind as I was reading as well! HA!)

Kathy McKinsey
3 years ago

Very encouraging. Thank you.:)

Dave
Dave
3 years ago

Dinner at the palace, yes.
Reasonable.

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