This morning I went to the Legacy Women's Conference where Beth Guckenberger spoke. Beth and her husband Todd are the directors of the Mexico branch of Back2Back Ministries. I went on a mission trip there is September of 2006, and that trip is one of the key motivators that picked me up out of complacency and tossed me down on this path of outreach and service. I could listen to Beth speak for days. She is such an effective communicator, and so clearly shares the way God is moving and how there is little else you can do when he moves, then to be changed.
She gave us an illustration this morning of a tree. The roots are God's image; the trunk is our self-image; and the fruit is our attitudes and actions. There is no way I'm going to be able to effectively communicate this to all of you, but bear with me.
Beth talked about how our self-image (the trunk) and our fruit (attitudes/actions) are all so tied into the roots of our image of God, who we believe him to be (and who he is, which are often two different things).
She told a story about one of her roots, that God will do what you ask of him, but how she always added the disclaimer: "Maybe but probably not all the time", because a year before she and her husband moved to Mexico, her dad got sick and died. She said for years she would only address the fruit, occasionally the trunk, but never the roots. She would never address that sick root that held her doubt that God will keep his promises to us.
Another story she told was of one of the girls in a children's home in Monterrey and her promiscuous behaviour. She said it would be simple to address the fruit only, the sex, the acting out. But to cease the behaviour, but not address the root behind it would only do so much. It would help, and it would be better, but it would only address the action, not the motivation behind the actions.
Do I believe that God is working where I am, in what I'm doing? Do I not believe that he's able to change my circumstances. Beth said faith is trusting the who, when you don't know the what, when, where, why, or how.
When life or a circumstance, or a relationship is to heavy to hard, to dark and you just want to give up, do you?
I saw this tree when I picked up Claire this morning for the conference, and I took a picture of it when I dropped her off. Because this tree, applied to the analogy Beth used at the conference reminded me so clearly of how I handle the to heavy, to hard, and to dark times.
Ok, so it's not a very good picture, but I felt a little silly and didn't want to drive closer (plus there were some people on bikes in suits that I was trying to avoid...)
When it gets to hard, to heavy, to much of everything I start attacking my fruit, my branches. While that can be appropriate in moderation, I take it to heights that are rarely appropriate.
More often then not I don't go to God, I don't go to the motivation for why I'm feeling/experiencing something that way. I am the judge, jury and executioner and it is almost always my fault alone. Statistically speaking, that just can't be true as much as I make it out to be. So I trim. I trim and prune and reign in my actions, words, attitudes, and myself. I close up tight like a fist and I withdrawal into hibernation convinced that I am not worth the dirt I tread on. The core of my self-image, of my tree trunk, is more often then not, nothing. Worthless, stupid, ridiculous, ugly, and unwanted. The core of that comes from some bad, sick roots that have been entangled in the roots of my tree, in the roots of my image of God (but that's a whole other post, that I may or may not have the stamina to post tonight). I certainly created and chose some of these sick roots, but many of them were in place before my story even began.
How can I trace the root back, and ask God to rip out the sick roots and change the core of my trunk? We'll soon see won't we?
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