7-12-17 - Of Rocks and Sun

Rocks and sun are a perfect environment for lizards.For plants? Not so much…

We’ve probably all encountered the fervor of a convert – someone hot on a new thing they’ve learned or experienced. A new love, a new job, maybe a new diet. We may even have met a few Christians in the first throes of excitement about the love of God they’ve come to know in Christ.

Sometimes it lasts, sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on the depth of soil that allows roots to grow.

“Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away.”  (This Sunday's gospel is here.)

What conditions make for rocky soil? Sometimes familiarity can foster complacency – same old, same old… that’s a kind of rockiness. Preoccupation with other concerns can keep us from growing spiritual roots. An emotional climate of anger or anxiety or stress can keep our soil rocky.

What would you identify as the hot sun that causes the newly rooted plants to wither? Fear, anger, hatred… Also some of the enemies we named yesterday, like ambition, sorrow, overwork, stress. What are the “hot suns” in your life that cause your spirit to become scorched and withered?

I remember once being deep in prayer on a retreat. In the prayer time, I sensed Jesus say to me, “I want you to come be with me every morning, to water your roots.” That’s partly why I named this Water Daily.

Are you feeling robust or withered as a spiritual person today? Might you walk that path with Jesus in your imagination and let him show you where you are today – on the path, on the rocks, in the deep soil? What does he suggest you do?

And what shall we do for those whom we see withering spiritually? Help transplant them into deeper soil, provide shade in the form of spiritual friendship - and sprinkle liberally with the Living Water gushing inside you, the Holy Spirit who renews all things in Christ.