Roots Deep and Wide

How well do you know plants? Here is a quiz. Do all plants have leaves? Do all plants have flowers? Do all plants have roots?

If you answered yes to the question of whether all plants have leaves you would have been wrong. Leaves are defined as having veins, so plants such as ferns and algae that lack veins don’t technically have leaves.

If you said that all plants have flowers, you would have been wrong again. There are a number of non-flowering plants; plants such as horsetails, ferns, conifers, and mosses. These non-flowering plants reproduce by spores rather than by seeds or pollen from flowering plants.

And if you answered that all plants have roots, you would once again be incorrect. Single-celled plants that float on water, namely green algae and some varieties of seaweed, do not have roots and absorb water and minerals through their all their parts rather than through roots.   

Other than water-floating plants, roots are critical for plant growth and survival. Roots serve several functions: anchor and support the plant, absorb and distribute water and minerals, storage of carbohydrates, sugars and proteins for winter survival of perennials, creation of new plants, and help to prevent soil erosion.

If you have ever tried to dig out a bush from your yard, you know that the root system usually seems to take up half the yard. But without this complex root system, the bush you are removing would not be a living plant – it would be an assortment of dead brush. 

Just as plants need energy from sunlight, carbon dioxide from the air, and water and minerals to be absorbed and distributed by their roots to thrive and survive, they also need the roots to support and anchor them in all kinds of weather conditions. We human beings also face all kinds of conditions that threaten our foundation. Life is filled with expected and unexpected twists and turns, periods of drought that leave us feeling dry and parched and seasons of endless rain that cause us to feel as if we are drowning.

Without roots to feed them, plants will die, and without roots to anchor them, they will not survive droughts or hurricanes. Without being firmly grounded in Jesus, we too will not find nourishment and strength to sustain us through life’s never-ending cycles of prolonged periods of either not enough or too much rainfall.

Scripture tells us that we need to be rooted in Jesus. Here is what we find in Colossians – “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk with him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (2:6-7).

We find similar words in the Old Testament, a contrast between being rooted in (trusting in) man and manmade things or being rooted in God. Click here to read Jeremiah 17:5-8.

In the Parable of the Sower, we find what happens when Jesus cannot grow his roots deep within us. In this parable, one about the condition of the soil, the farmer scatters seeds, which fall in various places. When we are like the stone path or the rocky places in this story, neither well suited for growing anything, here is what we read is the result – “But when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away” (Matthew 13:6). I encourage you to read both the parable (Matthew 13:1-9, Mark 4:1-9) and the explanation of the parable (Matthew 13:18-23, Mark 4:10-20).  

So, where do you find your nourishment and strength? How deep and how wide do your roots go in Jesus? Or maybe, I will ask it this way – Is your soil well-conditioned, allowing the roots of Jesus to go deep and wide in you?

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