Almost three years ago, now, a friend gave me a potted pine tree. It was not a species native to Florida, but I saw potential beauty in it. I say potential because it was not a healthy looking tree. The problem was it had outgrown the little pot it called home. It was top-heavy and would blow over in the slightest breeze.
Even worse, it had become root-bound and sent a tangle of exposed roots sprawling across the top of the pot and spilling over the edge. Yes, the roots had escaped their crowded plastic prison, but the freedom they attained on the outside did not include soil into which they could burrow to make themselves and the little tree thrive. Their purpose, giving life to the tree, was thwarted because they clung to plastic that held no moisture or nutrients to make them strong.
I took the sapling home and put it in the flowerbed in front of our house until I could find time to transplant it into the yard. It looked sick, with some branches already filled with sickly yellow colored needles . If I didn’t tend to it soon, it would probably die!
Weeks later, I made the effort to save it. The taproot had grown out of a hole in the side of the pot. I had to cut the plastic container in pieces, removing each piece with care so as to do as little damage as possible to the tap root. However, in preforming the operation I amputated most of the roots growing on the outside of the pot.
Once I cut the container off, to my dismay, I discovered the roots of the sapling were still imprisoned inside another pot. At some time in the past someone had set the tree, still in the original pot, into a second larger pot. The space between the pots was crammed full of roots. To free the root ball from that container, I had to do surgery, again, to remove the plastic prison. In the process, more damage was done to the exposed root system. I wondered if the tree would recover.
Since transplanting my little tree into the yard it has grown taller and pretty pine-green colored needles have again returned to its branches. If the trauma of neglect during seedling to sapling years still lurks beneath its bark, holding it back from reaching its full potential, it hides it well. It has become the tree I envisioned the day I brought it home, vibrant, and prettier than all the other kinds of pines that claim Florida as home!
You know, a tree rooted in God’s good earth does not get root-bound! Instead, it grows tall and is strong enough to stand against the storms that blow its way. If man plants a tree in a pot and forgets about it, that is the one that gets root-bound. That is the one that blows over in the slightest breeze!
People sometimes bully us, abuse us, or say unkind things to us. Such things can hurt us deeply and we may build walls around our hearts to escape such attacks. However, what we hoped would protect us from external hurts often become a prison in which we become root-bound. Bad roots of doubt and despair crowd out the good roots that nurture and sustain us. We feel justified in locking ourselves away, maybe even safer, but we stop growing and, probably, our spirit starts dying a slow painful death. When we are root-bound, we miss out on so much of life! We miss the best that God has for us.
Instead of self-incarceration we should place our trust and hope in the Lord. He will make us strong enough to face life, overcoming obstacles, and standing up to the bullies. The key to avoid being root-bound is to look at our lives through God’s eyes rather than those of our tormentors.
Having completed almost seventy-two years of age, it is easy for me to spout off platitudes about trusting God. Everyone of them is true, but I must confess that through my childhood, teen years, and well into adulthood I was root-bound! During those decades I missed out on so much of life, and did not reach my full potential with the abilities God endowed me with at birth. Even today, if I take my eyes off the Lord and what He says in His word about me, it is easy for me to slip back into captivity where evil roots put shackles around my heart and mind. Root-bound is not a healthy condition, neither for trees nor man. It is not a happy place!
Trees do not get to choose where they are planted. We humans don’t get to choose our parents, place of birth, circumstances or the environment in which we start life, but we do get to choose how we respond to the life we are given! The hard things of life can make us or break us. The choice is ours! That is the moral of this, the tale of the tree. Choose wisely! Grow for the glory of God!
Jeramiah 17: 7Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord. 8For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit.”
Ephesias 3: 16 that He (God) would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Fin
Something More
- https://fillburns.com/2024/02/23/for-the-wrong-reason-2/
- https://fillburns.com/2021/02/26/look-up-see-the-flowers/
- https://fillburns.com/2020/05/23/stiff-necked-me/
- https://fillburns.com/2023/01/01/flat-hats-haggis-and-robert-burns/
Writings By Phil 
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