Rooted, established, firm …

Living authentically means you won’t change directions every few minutes. You are doing what you know fits into your dream life and growing towards where you want to go. Now try and imagine this tomato plant you put in the ground last week. You just uprooted it because it didn’t seem to be showing the progress you expected. You had planted it because you had earlier expected to be a dealer in roses. Roses are beautiful. Red, yellow, vanilla, even blue. Your vision watered with this blooming garden, swamped by all the brides who wanted flowers. Even more mouth watering was the expected income…until the roses showed a disease that would have taken too long to overcome. So you turned to growing tomatoes instead of roses. Now it was also delaying its promise of satisfactory vocation. 

Maybe it’s time to consider your sister RUBY’s choice. A long term plan to be a fruit grower (now I wonder whence came that choice.) she claims she likes the smell of oranges, the look of pears, the color of pawpaws… What’s fascinating is that these fruit trees take so long to germinate, stem, tree and fruit. But when they do, they just can’t seem to stop. Season after season, year after year. Even diseases can’t stop them. Not even when they sometimes look like they are dying. Just treat the diseases. Just let water and freshness of fertiliser get into the soil. Like a patient awakening giant, they lift their heads again, and simply start fruiting all over again. 

So it is, beloved. So it is. Fruiting comes from rooting. The deeper the roots, the weightier the fruit. The better, by all standards. No seasonal termination of harvest, like tomatoes. This one is perennial. Over and over. Again, fruit may take time to show up, but when they do, they are priceless. That’s why God is always anxious to tell Israel, ‘take root down, bear fruit up’. He tells the church ‘being rooted and established, you will abound’. Where will u lay your roots? Is it good ground, or is it stony ground? Is it a ground on which every form of parasite and passerby has access to lay waste what you have carefully laid down? Don’t take it for granted. Make your plans as longest term as possible. Think through career and relationship choices with long term fruit in mind. Don’t plan to uproot yourself. Resist being tossed to and fro from careless planning and placing yourself in unsuitable places. It is not a good plan unless it is a long term plan – best still, an eternal plan! It is then that you are likely to need a factory to process, then a financial establishment to manage, then….

Is your vision watering from the beautiful outcomes of that long term plan? Live with vision and value!