Assume that What Grows Above Ground has God-given Roots

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." 

-- Augustine

Last Sunday, we talked about ways that we get stuck in circles in our relationships (and ways that we can get stuck in discipling one another). The first step out of this futile cycle is to assume that what grows above ground has God-given roots. This first point of the three caused a bit of discussion.

What grows "above ground" are the ways that we communicate and act - the words that we say, the tones in which we say them. What grows above ground may be good lawn or weeds - good, accurate, kind words or mean-spirited, untrue words. Most often, it's a mix of some good plants and some weeds. We get "stuck" when all we do is engage what grows above ground, and especially when assume that there could be nothing legitimate about what the other person did or said. Our first point is to assume that everything we do and say is an expression of a God-given need - that there is something very, very legitimate about it, no matter how ugly it looks above ground.

God made us in His image. One of the many implications of this truth is that God specifically designed us to have core needs that would be satisfied only in Him. This makes us unique from all the other creatures. He made us with the core need to love and be loved, to have purpose and significance, to matter, to have emotional, physical, and spiritual security, to be in healthy relationship with others, and so on. These needs motivate everything we do, and are designed to seek out God for soul satisfaction.

God's Law directs us to find our satisfaction for these needs ultimately in God. Look at the Old Testament Law with this in mind, and you'll see that what God is doing is preventing us from seeking satisfaction for those needs in other things, and furthermore, to pursue satisfaction only in Him. We see this most intensely in His prohibition against idolatry and demand for exclusive worship.

One way to understand sin is that it is pursuing God-given needs by God-forbidden means. Obvious examples include substance abuse (to seek the God-given need for joy or meaning), promiscuity (to seek the God-given need for love and connection), and violence (to seek the God-given need for things to be under control). Less obvious examples include things like gossip (to seek self-righteousness). It's not hard to look at any particular sin and see how it is a failed attempt to satisfy a God-given need by something other than God.

Jesus, of course, was absent of this failed pursuit. He sought satisfaction for all the things His human nature needed, but He sought them only in His Father. The three temptations that Satan threw at Him in the wilderness were precisely to fulfill God-given needs in something other than the Father. His three responses were that He would find what His soul desires only in His Father. Fast forward to the end of the story of man - how is our eternal state described in Scripture other than full satisfaction for all our needs, specifically and exclusively in Christ?

Everything we do is driven by trying to satisfy God-given needs. In relationships, we may say horrible, ugly, untrue things - but what we're trying to do underneath all that illegitimate dialog is to satisfy a God-given need. (We often do not realize this, but it drives us nonetheless - we do everything to scratch God-given itches, and our sinfulness often diverts us in that pursuit)

If we stop assuming this simple truth about one another, then when one of us does speak in weed-like ways, the other will ignore the God-given need being expressed and focus only on the weediness. We get stuck
never attempting to help one another find our true satisfaction in Christ, because we've assumed there's no God-given need to be satisfied. We focus on the illegitimate and ignore the legitimate, and then wonder why we're stuck.

This assumption is essential before we can attempt the next two steps (ignore the weeds and cultivate the deep soil). This assumption is an act of grace.

Pullin' weeds

Every time I pull weeds, I can't help but think of the spiritual lessons I'm holding in my dirt-encrusted hands, thinking about the "weeds" of the spiritual life.

• It's easier to pull weeds when they are small, rather than letting them grow talk, thick, and strong. Letting spiritual problems grow stronger only makes it harder to remove them later.
• Rather than bypass the thorny weeds, wear gloves. Some spiritual problems are painful to deal with. Rather than ignore them, letting the thorns get thornier, bring in the right equipment to handle the job - such as a wise counselor, a good book, a change in lifestyle, giving up something in order to remove the weed, and so on.
• Some weeds are insidious because they drop new roots every few feet, making them harder to remove - killing one section doesn't kill the next section. Spiritual problems can foster other spiritual problems, which then take root all by themselves. Better to remove the weed early before it drops new roots a few feet across the lawn.
• You gotta get the root, or the weed comes right back. It's tempting to deal only with the surface of spiritual issues, rather than getting to the root of the problem. Just masking a spiritual problem to look good in front of the neighbors only allows the roots to grow stronger and pop up new surface issues harder to remove than before.
• Sometimes you gotta dig to get at the root. Sometimes, you need people who are trained in counseling to really figure out what the root problems are. But you must get to them to get rid of the weed.
• The neighbors have weeds, too. Rather than worrying about how my lawn compares to the neighbor's lawn, I need to tend to my lawn, and to have empathy for the weeds in his lawn. We're both trying to grow healthy lawns, so comparing doesn't help anyone.
• Weeding is never finished. Tending to your spiritual life takes constant, life-long effort.
• The best way to keep weeds out is to have a thick lawn with healthy roots. The best way to keep spiritual weeds out is to be as healthy as possible in my spiritual life, disciplines, and practices.
• If I do nothing, the weeds will take over. If you do little to maintain your spiritual life, you won't just stay in the same state - weeds will take over, and your spiritual life will decline. 

I'm sure you could come up with several of your own analogies. Usually after weeding, I'm motivated again to clear some weeds out of my life, too. I like how the lawn is healthier without all those weeds in it.