Roots and Shoots
CULTIVATING A LIFE OF FAITH THROUGH PRAYER
Seeds and plants need four things to become viable and fruit-producing. Without one of them, or if conditions aren’t right, a seed won’t germinate, nor a plant grow or bloom. Budding faith is cultivated through prayer. These vital elements maintain growth and sustain life. Left untended, our lives grow cold and dry, get choked out and wither into darkness.
WARMTH
“Prayer is the thermometer of Divine Grace.” – Charles Spurgeon
Warming a seed awakens it, beginning process for it do what it was made to. An encounter with divine grace, awakens us to the effects of our sin.
The Apostle Paul recounts His encounter with divine grace in Acts 26. Jesus admonished him to share his testimony of this encounter and tells Paul why.
“to open their” [sinners’] “eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
Acts 26:18
God’s love leads to salvation. There is no magic prayer for it. The Bible says us salvation comes through belief in the heart and confession of the mouth. Crying out to God in the midst of your sin and confessing who He is, is prayer.
Prayer infuses God’s love and compassion into our hearts. God’s love warms our hardened heart in preparation for hope to soften it.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Jn 3:16
WATER
“Prayer irrigates the fields of life with the waters which are stored up in the reservoirs of promise.” – Charles Spurgeon
“hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”
Ro 5:5
Water softens a seed’s shell allowing for roots to develop and emerge, anchoring the plant in the ground. Hope’s living water softens the shell of our heart, preparing faith’s roots to break through. The root of faith secures our salvation and anchors our soul in hope.
When we’re feeling hopeless, are face-down humiliated, or helpless in hardship the Holy Spirit that has been poured into our hearts intercedes for us.
“the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”
Ro 8:26
Cry out to God in your hopelessness, humiliation, and helplessness. The wordless groanings of the Spirit’s intercession are petitions on your behalf that only the heart of God can understand.
Prayer infuses hope in the promises from which living water flows. Living water feeds roots of faith as the breath of life aerates them.
AIR
“As air is the breath of life, so prayer is the breath of faith.” – Paul Yonggi Cho
“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Ph 4:6-7
Oxygen metabolizes a seed’s nutrients, sustaining it during germination. As the plant matures root cell oxygenation takes place at night, in the dark. This biological process provides adequate water intake and nutrient absorption for healthy, stable growth.
The Breath of Life brings the fresh air of peace in prayer, sustaining us as our faith grows.
There are prayers of adoration and praise, thanksgiving and gratitude, but prayers of confession and repentance are vital to nurturing faith.
God has created our bodies with little pockets at the bottom of each lung. When we breathe in oxygen, these pockets filter it, and through a biological process the oxygen becomes carbon dioxide, a toxin. We breathe in the Breath of Life and pray out toxic thoughts and behaviors in confession and repentance.
Plants take in carbon dioxide and produce life giving oxygen. In the same way God takes our fear, anxiety, frustration, and anger and turns it into peace through redemption and restoration.
Sometimes our lives get choked out. Circumstances or people suck the oxygen right out of our system. And our gracious God gives us a solution to get it back.
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
James 5:16
We confess to one another, releasing toxic behaviors and thoughts. We take in the Breath of Life and pray for one another, that we may be healed from our fall into the vat of sin.
The power at work in our prayers is the power of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts who intercedes with wordless groanings only the heart of God can understand. Prayer infuses peace through submitting our whole lives to God.
Oxygen sustains the roots of a plant, allowing the shoot to break forth into the light.
LIGHT
“The power of prayer is like turning on a light as it illuminates God’s purpose for our lives. There is no greater connection to knowing His will other than His Word.” – Thomas Kincaid
It’s interesting that such a profound statement would come from one who succumbed to the darkness of sin.
“In Him” [Jesus] “was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not” [nor will not] “overcome it.”
Jn 1:4-5
“Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”
Jn 8:12
Some seeds germinate in the dark, others in the light. When the shoot breaks through, it seeks the light. When we’re dead in our sin, trapped in the darkness, there is no life nor light within us. In that darkness we search for light and discover life.
Jesus knew the darkness of sin. Not because He sinned. Being fully God, He was perfectly sinless. Being fully man, Jesus carried our sin up the hill and bore the burden of it as He hung on the cross. Jesus faced the consequences of our sin when the land when dark and His father had to look away.
In Jesus, light and life are synonymous, inseparable. Without Jesus there is no love, hope, nor peace. No life nor light thereof.
Shoots and plants need light for the process of Photosynthesis, turning toxin into life-giving oxygen.
Jesus is our source of life and light. While we are not the source, we still have a purpose. To reflect His light. Prayer is preparation to do it.
Prayer infuses life, stable and thriving, producing the next generation of seeds that will be scattered on the winds of change.
Seeds of God’s love are cultivated in living waters of hope, with His breath turning our toxins into testimony that glorifies Him by our transformed lives. Dormancy is necessary for survival. Germination is essential to revival, but proper conditions must exist. Revival is rooted in repentance. As God warms our hearts with love and strengthens our roots in faith, His breath leaves our mouths in prayer and our lives reflect His light.
