The Uprooting

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:13-14, NIV).

Wanna know why this is one of my favorite verses about Jesus' sacrifice and salvation? Because of the absolute finality in these words.

The Bible doesn’t say that Jesus almost rescued us from darkness, or that we have some redemption and a little forgiveness. No. This is a total and complete uprooting of sinful death, with the life of Christ being planted in its place. If the Lord is a Gardener (fun fact: after His resurrection, some of His followers mistake Him for this exact thing), then He’s a very good and thorough One because—as any plant aficionado can tell you—weeding doesn’t work if you don’t obliterate the root (John 20:15).

Say you’re trying to get rid of a bunch of thistles. You can cut off their leaves and yank out their stalks so there’s no trace of them above ground; however, if you don’t dig under the surface and conquer their long, winding pathways of roots, they’ll sprout and distress your crops again.

On a spiritual, eternal scale, the Messianic Gardener has already uprooted the power of sin and death entirely, having wrestled out every last stubborn bit with His nail-torn hands (1 Peter 3:18).

That being said, those of us who’ve been transplanted into His Heavenly garden (aka, asked Him to be our Lord and Savior) may have some thistles popping up amongst our stalks; some nasty weed roots intertwined around our new, saved, redeemed ones. Since they’re inhibiting our growth, He wishes to get rid of them, but this will cause us significant distress.

In order to unearth these roots, the Gardener has to dig us up and out of our comfortable flower bed. Then, He must manually separate the thistle roots from ours, untangling and unraveling our delicate framework in order to achieve this. As our plant selves lay there on the dirt, gasping for water that our roots cannot find, we’ll feel like we’re being destroyed. But the Gardener will pause His tedious untangling work, pour “rivers of living water” out of His fingertips to nourish us, and resume (John 7: 37-39). If He notices we’re starting to wither up, He’ll take a break, put us back in the ground, and let us rest for a bit; when the time is right, He’ll start weeding again.

Over and over, this cycle will commence until, finally, we’ll be thistle-free, with zero weeds snuffing out our growth. Then, He’ll put us back in the ground for a final time, and we’ll spend eternity flourishing with Him.

(Can you tell which part of this analogy branches off from our time on earth to our time in Heaven? This weeding process is a marathon, not a sprint, and our Gardener knows just when to let us rest and just when to tear us apart. He is working for our good, after all.)

That being said, we, as plants, have to invite Him to untangle us.

The Gardener’s eager to work, but He won’t weed where He is not welcomed (John 15:5). I think that’s why David (I know, first I jumped from gardens to marathons to gardens again, and now I’m rewinding two hundred years to talk about psalms. Bare with me, my dear readers) prays “search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: [please] see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps 139:23-24, KJV).

If we want to grow closer to the Lord and the abundant, flourishing, fearless life His salvation entails, then we have to let Him search and weed and unravel. Jesus will do so with the most tender of care, but it’ll still hurt us, since growing pains are inherently painful. Nevertheless, we can choose to worship in the weeding:

"I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation” (Is 12:1-2, NIV).

Friends, we experience the weeding and uprooting and think that God’s angry with us, when in reality, He’s angry with the sin that’s entangling us (Philippians 1:6).

We’re told to throw off every weight and the sin that so easily entangles, fixing our eyes on Jesus—Who joyfully and eagerly endures the cross in our place—because we’re not meant to be living in this fallen, thistle-infested life (Hebrews 12:1). By Christ's sacrifice, we’re not only rescued, redeemed, and forgiven by the Good Gardener … but taught that we can trust Him and not panic while He’s uprooting us.

Sure, it’s scary to be thrust out of our comfort zones—have the thoughts and beliefs and obsessions and hurts we’ve hidden for so long be dug up and exposed—but He’s our Sustenance, Living Water, Sonshine, Light, and Life (John 6:35). 

The Good Gardener knows what He’s doing, so we can praise Him, dig into His Word, and keep soaking up His life-giving Truth …

As He uproots …

And uproots …

And uproots.