Rootbound

I was planting some moss today and was reminded of a rather important spiritual lesson.  Many plants I buy at the nursery are “root-bound,” meaning they have outgrown the pot they are in.  If you zoom in on the pic on the left, you will see that the roots and dirt are exactly the same shape as the container.  They are so tightly bound together that the dirt cannot even fall away from the roots.  If you plant it that way, it will never get any bigger and more than likely become sickly and die. You see, the roots don’t know that you’ve removed their restriction; they will continue circling that dirt thinking they are still in the pot, when actually they have as much room as they need to roam around.

Experienced gardeners prepare the plant for another pot or the ground by distressing it, dragging their fingernails over all the roots and breaking them up, as the pic shows on the right. They hang out of the dirt heater-skelter, ready to move off in another direction. It looks a little bedraggled, but it is just right to go into the ground and thrive.

The next time you are faced with a challenging situation and feel that sharp fingernails are tearing your comfortable life to shreds, remember that, like that plant, we don’t grow spiritually in comfort and complacency.  We need distressing. The hurt and the pain is where growth happens. God loves us too much to leave us root-bound. James, the brother of Jesus, tells us to count it all joy.

James 1:2-4