Room to Grow

by Karen Keim

This Week's Verse: Song of Solomon 6:11, "I went down to the grove of nut trees to look at the new growth in the valley, to see if the vines had budded or the pomegranates were in bloom." (NIV)

Devotion:
A little over a year ago, a friend sent me a beautiful planter. The pot that held the plants was about six inches by six inches, and it had four different plants in it, each just the right size to make a very nice arrangement. As time went on, of course, the plants began crowding one another as they grew in that small pot. They began looking weak and pitiful. More than once I would think to myself, “I’ve GOT to repot those poor plants.” In fact, my husband suggested that I would be doing those shabby-looking things a favor if I just threw the whole pot away!

Well, here came spring. I was cleaning out my potting shed and came across some pots that were just the right size to repot each of those four malnourished plants. And that I did! I planted each in its own pot, using fresh potting soil, adding a little bit of fertilizer, and put them on my front porch where they get just the right amount of sunlight. Oh my, what BEAUTIFUL plants they’ve each individually become! As I was admiring them just this morning, I couldn’t believe how they had grown and improved in such a short time.

I then got to thinking how that whole scenario is representative of our own lives. We are like those plants. We are “all bunched up” and bound up by the things of this world. We couldn’t grow (spiritually) if we wanted to! We’ve got so much “stuff” of the world crowding in around us. Mind you, it’s not all bad stuff. All of the plants in that pot were “nice”, “good” plants. But they were “sucking the life” out of one another and causing each of them to be weak. Do you have things, people, activities that are sucking the life out of you?

Let’s do a little repotting of ourselves! Don’t do what I did with those plants and put it off. Let’s get out of that “pot” that’s holding us down. Let’s repot ourselves in a spot that has less of the world in it. How about putting yourself in the fresh soil of God’s Word? Get in it!!! And then “fertilize” with prayer.

You know what? I can just see the beautiful, growing, spiritually-nourished person we can each become by doing just that!

Father, forgive us for allowing the worries of this world to choke the life out of us, as Jesus spoke of in his parable of the seeds (Matt. 13:7). Thank you for the chance to start fresh, leaving behind what stifles our growth.

Application:
Identify wordly influences that are leaving you weak and undernourished. What can you do to disentangle yourself from them and start fresh separated from them? Sinking your roots into the Word and getting nourishment from prayer will allow you to blossom.

Power Verses:
Ezekiel 47:12, "Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."(NIV)
Job 29:19, "For I am like a tree whose roots reach the water,whose branches are refreshed with the dew."(NLT)