Just a few thoughts here today because it’s sunny outside :-). This week God has me on the contemplative kick of considering amusement (stay tuned for LiveDifferent Challenge 12 tomorrow). As I thought about it and read, I remembered chapter from AW Tozer, my favorite dead author, who talked about the very subject. More on the tomorrow. But as I picked up his book, The Root of the Righteous, I ran a steaming hot bath, thinking I would savor the quiet evening alone with some practical kick-your-teeth-in theology from Mr. Tozer. Well, as usual, I couldn’t get past the first page, because Tozer writes with such pithiness that each sentence is a quote–how can you read large quantities of it?! It’d be like eating a trough full of Lindt truffles. They’re better eating only one and savoring it. So, I leave this thought with you (the gist of the book). Tozer writes this:
“One marked difference between the faith of our fathers…and the same faith…lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendents seem concerned only with the fruit. This appears in our attitude toward certain great Christian souls whose names are honored amont the churches…Today we write biographies of such as these and celebrate their fruit, but the tendency is to ignore the root out of which the fruit sprang. “The root of the righteous yieldeth fruit,”…Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear. We demand the fruit immediately even though the root may be weak and knobby or missing altogether…There is no lasting life apart from the root.”
And how true this is today! We’ve become so obsessed with wanting the fruit (increase church attendance, victory over struggle areas, souls “accepting” Christ), we’ve neglected the root. As John Piper says, “God calls us not to be fruitful, but faithful.” We’re called to be faithful, God is the one who causes fruit. We will be rewarded for our faithfulness (“Well done, good and faithful servant”), not our fruitfulness. How well for our souls it would be if we focused primarily on the cultivation of the inner man and woman of the heart. On the inner death to self and embrace of Christ, on the emotional, fervant desire for God Himself, on the forsaking of all that is opposed to God, even if it seems for naught.
Today as I tended my basil plant I thought of the reason this is so hard for us. No one sees our roots. No one knows if we even have roots. We (and God) are the only one who knows whether we have roots or not. Unfortunately we’ve become masters at stimulating growth, but often without the necessary care of our root system, which means we will inevitably dry up. But for those with roots, this is the beautiful outcome:
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1)
Let’s tend to our roots and leave the fruit to the Heavenly Father.