While standing in line at the local plant nursery, I could not help but notice the woman in front of me. Her face was flushed as she held up her wilted plant to the customer service desk. “I need a bigger container,” she said.

Like a doctor examining a sick patient, the customer service manager cupped the lifeless plant in her hand. “The answer,” she said, pointing down the aisle of plant food and nutrients, “is not in the container, but in the soil.” How true this is for us as believers, also!

So often, we get overworked and nearly overtaken by the never-ending demands of job, family, and church. As a result, we cry out to God as if we were complaining to the customer service desk, “Change my job (then I’ll be a better employee)!” “Change my kids (then I’ll be a better mom)!” “Change my husband (then I’ll be a better wife)!” “Change my house (then I’ll keep it up better)!” “Change my church (then I’ll be used more by you, oh God)!”

Like the wilted plant, we appear to be in need of something different-a better job, new kids (like the neighbors’!), a new house, a bigger and more high-powered church that will use us and display our gifts.

Change, mind you, is healthy and good. Sometimes God calls us to change environments and friends and circumstances. Sometimes He wants us to do a new thing. Sometimes He wants us to walk away from past bondage and abuse. But often, instead of having us change “containers” – people and environments – God has us stay put and work with the soil at hand.

Jesus reminds us that our lives are rooted in Him. He says: “‘I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing’” (John 15:5, NKJV). That means that no matter what container – or circumstance – you or I are in, no matter what we are walking through as believers, we are grafted into Jesus, the life-giving Vine. That connection with Jesus places us in good soil.

Like any soil that supports living things, our life in Jesus has to be cultivated, watered and tended to. As believers, we must live life daily in Him-spending time with Him in prayer and reading His Word. Soil needs nutrients and “working with.” A life in Jesus, in this darkened world, needs our commitment to growing in Him if we are to walk in His presence and power. The Scriptures bear out this truth. In Matthew 13:3-23, we read the parable of the sower who scattered seed. Some seed fell on stony places, not surviving because of insufficient soil. But other seed survived, took root and yielded a crop because it fell on good ground.

When you and I “take in” God’s Word daily, we receive seed in the good soil of a life in Jesus. We grow in Jesus and, consequently, in His likeness and in the power of His might.

The answer to feeling as if the life is drained out of us, like that wilted plant, is not always in our seeking to jump to the new container of a better job, different boss, bigger house or flashier car. Often the answer is in cultivating the soil of a life in Jesus – simply digging in and experiencing His presence and practicing His ways.

PRAYER POWER

Ask the Lord to deepen your roots in Him so that your faith grows and remains unshaken. Exercise that faith when you pray for a global harvest of souls. Pray for holy fire to penetrate the very core of the church and spread to young and old alike. As you pray for the peace of Jerusalem and surrounding nations, continue to ask for godly leaders who stand for righteousness in this country and around the world. Isaiah 61; Eph. 1:17-23; Rev. 21:22-24

Visit us at http://www.spiritledwoman.com where you’ll find encouragement, inspiration, fellowship and fun.

To subscribe to the Power Up! Mailing list, please visit http://www.spiritledwoman.com.

Content from Power Up! is Copyrighted 2000 by Strang Communications Company. Content may not be reproduced without the expressed permission of the Publisher. For rights and permissions, please email spiritledwoman@strang.com.