When growing up we had lots of fruit trees in our yard. We had plum trees. We had a pear tree. However, the largest was our fig tree. It was large enough to use as our very own climbing structure.
My brother and I would spend hours in that fig tree. Swinging from branch to branch and screaming like we were in a Tarzan movie. We had so much fun. We never thought about falling out of the tree because at that age we had no fear of things like that. Trusting that the tree would hold us because it had never failed us in the past.
As adults, we know that the tree was able to hold us because the branches were strong and the roots of the tree were almost unmovable. That fig tree had been there for years and through heavy rain, tornados, and hurricanes it stood firmly planted. (I lived in southern Alabama and that type of weather was the norm for us).
A lot of issues within us are like that fig tree. We have things that have plagued us for years and some of it is so deeply rooted, we have let it lay dormant. Feelings and emotions from past hurts or disappointments have become so apart of us, that we believe it is who we are. Not so? God is saying, “It is time to UPROOT them.”
In my book, “Touching His Hem-My Journey to Wholeness,” I shared about the day that I kneeled beside my bed and I cried out to God because I wanted things rooted from my life. Anger, pride, self-hatred, a judgmental mindset and a critical spirit we’re just a few of my issue. That day was the beginning of God UPROOTING my “junk.”
1 John 5:14 states, “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.”
The Father heard my cry and although the process of uprooting has been a bit daunting and at times painful; I am better for it.
Listen, don’t allow the fear of change and being processed keep you from becoming a better you. There is healing, forgiveness, joy, peace restored relationships, etc. with the new. You just have to release it to God and allow Him in to do the work with you. It is so worth it.
You know I went back to my childhood home a few years ago and my beloved fig tree was gone. It had been uprooted. There was no physical sign of that tree whatsoever. In order to build something new on that property, that tree had to be removed. Did you catch that?
God is saying, “I want to make you new, but I must remove the old.” Shift in attitudes, mindsets, ways of thinking, things that we believed were true, but were lies from the enemy, allow God to do the deep work and uproot them. It’s time.
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