Getting to the root

Today I pretended to be a landscaper. I cleaned some leaves out of the downspout. Next, I trimmed back the evergreen trees outside the house. Then I lifted up some of the concrete slabs that form the walkway from the sidewalk to my front door to try to remove some of the roots that were pushing them up an making them uneven.

I don't know what I thought that tree roots were made of, but I was surprised to find that they were made of wood (biology isn't exactly my strong suit). The offending root was about as big around as a softball, and its location made it very difficult to deal with.

As I was trying to get the root out, a sermon that my grandfather gave many years ago came to mind. He said that sin in our lives is like a dandelion on your front lawn. It is a fairly simple task to eliminate the visible signs of the weed by walking over and pulling off the leaves and the flower. However, this will not get rid of the weed. The only sure way to eliminate the weed is to get it by the roots. The same thing applies to sin, we must go after the root of the problem, not just the outward manifestations.

With those thoughts in mind, I was determined to displace this root. So, armed with a ballpine hammer and a wood chisel I attacked. What I quickly discovered was that I was not going to be able to remove this massive root with one large blow. The only way to remove it was to slowly scrape away a little bit at a time. It was difficult work, and it didn't happen quickly, but little by little the root gave way.

Returning to the sin as a root metaphor, part of what made this root so difficult to unseat was the way in which it had been left to grow for so long. As each year passed without action to remove the root it grew larger and larger.

We may not be able to change damaging patterns in our lives with one large or simple change. It often requires that we make small steps toward eliminating sin.