"Rooted - Part 3"

Rooted: What It Means to Be Planted by Living Water

There is a kind of person the ancient poetry of Psalm 1 describes with a single, sweeping word: blessed. Not lucky. Not successful in the way the world measures success. Blessed. And the picture painted of this person is not one of ease or comfort or status. It is the picture of a tree.

A tree planted by rivers of water.

That image is worth sitting with for a moment. A tree does not drift. A tree does not blow from one place to the next depending on the direction of the wind. A tree is planted. Its roots go down before its branches go up. And when the storms come, and they always do, the depth of those roots determines everything.

The Choice Before Every One of Us

Psalm 1 opens with a progression that is easy to miss if you read it too quickly. It begins with walking in the counsel of the ungodly, moves to standing in the way of sinners, and finally arrives at sitting in the seat of the scornful. What starts as a casual stroll ends in a settled posture of mockery toward the things of God. The drift is gradual. It almost always is.

The blessed person, by contrast, has made a deliberate decision. Not a passive one. Not a default one. A decision. At some point in every life, the question has to be answered: Who am I going to be? Will I be a follower of Jesus Christ, or will I walk in the ways of the world? Will I allow my roots to go down into something that lasts, or will I remain like the chaff the psalmist describes, blown to and fro by every wind that comes?

That decision is not made once and forgotten. It is renewed in the small choices of every ordinary day. It is made when you open your Bible in the morning before the noise of the world rushes in. It is made when you show up for someone who is hurting. It is made when you choose to invest what you have been given rather than fold it up and hide it away.

The Parable of the Minas and the Weight of Accountability

In Luke 19, Jesus tells a parable about a nobleman who entrusts his servants with resources before departing to receive his kingdom. His instruction to them is direct and urgent: occupy till I come. Be busy. Be about my work. I am returning.

When the nobleman returns, he calls his servants to account. The first has multiplied what he was given tenfold. The second has gained five times what he received. But the third servant returns the original sum untouched, wrapped in a cloth, preserved but unproductive. His reason is fear. His explanation is full of assumptions about the master's character that the master himself calls out as false. And the response is sobering: even the excuse does not hold up.

Notice what the first servant says when he presents his return. He does not say "my pound has gained ten more." He says "thy pound." Everything entrusted to him, he recognized as belonging to the master. That single word carries the entire weight of what it means to surrender. Our gifts, our time, our abilities, our resources, our opportunities, none of it is ultimately ours. It was given to us in trust, and one day we will give an account of what we did with it.

The question is not whether you have been given much or little. The question is whether you have been faithful with what you have.

Damaged Goods and a Bus Full of Children

There is a story that puts flesh on all of this. A woman contracted polio and found herself bound to a wheelchair, unable to care for herself in even the most basic ways. One pastor told her that God was done with her, that she was of no use anymore. She disagreed. She said she might be damaged goods, but there was still something she could do.

A new pastor eventually came and asked her to lead a Sunday school class. She said yes. Word spread. The class grew. Then she asked a bus company for a donation, not a purchase, a gift, two buses and two drivers, to bring children from across town who might not otherwise come. The owner laughed. She persisted. He relented.

Within five years, 35 buses and 35 drivers were running routes, and no fewer than 5,000 children were coming through those doors. The owner of the bus company wrote her a letter. His whole family had come to faith. Every one of his drivers had come to faith. And it had started with a woman in a wheelchair who refused to believe she had nothing left to offer.

God is not looking for the polished and the capable. He is looking for the willing.

What Occupying Actually Looks Like

Occupying until he comes does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like driving a bus. Sometimes it looks like teaching children in a nursery for 25 years. Sometimes it looks like cooking a meal for a family that just lost someone they loved. Sometimes it looks like showing up to a wedding shower or a baby celebration when it would be easier to stay home. Sometimes it looks like writing a card to someone who is shut in and lonely and has not heard from anyone in weeks.

The fruit that a rooted tree produces is not always spectacular. But it is consistent. It is steady. It does not wither. And it does not depend on the season being favorable or the conditions being perfect. A tree planted by living water produces fruit because of what it is connected to, not because of how hard it is trying.

The water that Psalm 1 points toward, the living water that Jesus himself describes as a well that never runs dry, is the source. When your roots go down into that, the fruit follows. Not because of your effort, but because of your connection.

So the question worth sitting with today is simple and serious at the same time. What have you been given? And what are you doing with it?