What Are You Rooted In?

A few weeks ago, I undertook the worst kind of gardening work. Not the pleasant kind, where you trim a few overgrown branches and step back satisfied. The real fight — dandelions all through the lawn, and clover creeping through the landscape rocks, so quiet and unassuming you almost don't notice it until it's taken over entire sections.

If you've ever pulled a full-grown dandelion, you know the truth about weeds: what you see is never the real problem. The real problem is underneath — a taproot that can run a foot deep, sometimes more. Snap it at the surface, feel good about your tidy yard for a few days, and then watch it come right back because the root is still there. And the longer you let it grow, the deeper it gets. Every season you don't deal with it, it gets a little harder to pull.

I was kneeling in the damp grass and mud, sweating and getting frustrated, when it struck me how this is the same as what happens to us. Not just our lawns. Our hearts. (I found myself singing the chorus, “I’m taking back what the enemy stole”, from the Tauren Wells song.) It certainly gave me more energy and strength to pull weeds when I shifted my mindset from seeing them as hard work to instead being the intentional removal of what does not belong in this landscape.

Paul writes about this in Colossians 2:6-10:

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness."

Rooted. That's the word that caught my attention as I pondered my “weed experience.” Because I know what it feels like to be rooted in something good — and I know what it feels like when something else has quietly taken root instead, without me really noticing until it was tangled through everything.

So, what actually causes the weeds in our lives?

The first is neglect — simple as that. We stop spending time with the Lord. Not dramatically, usually. Just a slow drift. A season where we're busy, or tired, or distracted, and prayer becomes something we mean to get back to. And just like real weeds, if you don't deal with them the moment they show up, they get stronger every year you let them sit. What could've been pulled in an afternoon in year one becomes a wrestling match by year three.

SIDE BAR:  There is another lesson in neglect that I want to unpack for a minute. Nature abhors a vacuum. Remove something from somewhere, and the space will very quickly be filled up again. If you have a life filled with (rooted in) the Lord, there is precious little room to take on anything else. But when you neglect – i.e. take away time, attention, intention, or focus – from what is good, what is not good will quickly fill the space. Before you realize it, you spend hours binging a new show, but can’t quite find time to open your Bible. Or you prioritize your performance at work to such a degree, there is precious little time to be quiet, rest, retreat, with the Lord.

The second cause of weeds is denial.  This is about not knowing God's truth well enough to recognize a lie when it's dressed up nicely. (Heads up – they normally are.) We fall for false promises, for images the world sells us about who we should be, what will finally make us enough. And we don't even see them as weeds. We just think that's how the garden is supposed to look. Denial isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it's just not looking closely enough and holding things up to the light of Christ to test their validity.

So how do we actually get the weeds out — not just the visible part, but the root?

There are three steps, and I've found I need every one of them.

Step 1: See it. This is confession — just being honest. "I have weeds." Not shame, not self-punishment. Just truth. You can't pull what you won't admit is there.

Step 2: Confront it. This is where you replace the lie with what's actually true. "I no longer believe this belongs in my life, no matter what the world has told me." You are set free in Christ — not eventually, not once you clean yourself up first, but now. That freedom is already yours; the weed was never supposed to be the thing defining your landscape.

Step 3: Remove it. This is repentance — and it means going after the whole root, not just what's visible on the surface. This is the part I understood so clearly with dirt under my fingernails. If you only pull the top of a weed, the part everyone can see, the root stays exactly where it was. And it will grow back. Maybe shorter this time, maybe hidden a little differently, but it comes back — because the root was never dealt with.

Here's what really matters though: we don't do this uprooting so that we can then go earn our worth. Paul says in Christ you have been brought to fullness. Already.

You're not pulling weeds to become enough. You're pulling weeds because you already are — and it's time your garden reflected that truth again.

You're taking back what the enemy stole – territory in your heart, your soul, your attention.

I challenge you now - maybe take a walk through your own garden – especially the garden of your soul and mind. Not the obvious open grass, but behind the rocks, the corners, the places you don't look because nothing seems to be growing there. Ask God to show you what's actually rooted. And when He does — and He will, gently — don't just clip what's visible.

Go after the root. That's where the real freedom is.

Till next time, be blessed!