Still Standing

“For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river.” — Jeremiah 17:8

There’s something about a good storm that gets my attention. The wind picks up, the rain starts pelting the windows, thunder rolls across the sky, and suddenly everything outside is getting a good shaking whether it volunteered or not.

I love the quiet afterward almost as much as the storm itself. The air smells clean, the heaviness is gone, and the sky somehow looks bluer than it did before. Everything feels washed.

Of course, then you look around.

Storms have a way of revealing what was firmly rooted and what wasn’t. One tree may be down altogether, roots exposed for everyone to see. Another may be leaning rather suspiciously. And somewhere nearby is one that took the same wind and rain and is still firmly planted.

Jeremiah’s tree comes to mind: “a tree planted by the waters,” with roots spreading toward the river. Long before the wind ever began to blow, something important had been happening underground. Those roots had been quietly growing toward the source that would sustain them when the weather changed.

Our walk with God happens in much the same way.

Most days don’t feel particularly heroic. We read His Word. We pray. We learn a little more about His character. We trust Him with today’s concerns and hopefully remember tomorrow that we already gave them to Him today. It can all seem rather ordinary.

But roots are growing.

Then storm clouds gather, and before long life seems to erupt around us. Something changes that we didn’t expect. A prayer remains unanswered. Plans fall apart. Loss comes knocking. Suddenly those quiet days of learning who God is don’t seem ordinary at all. What has been growing beneath the surface becomes the very thing that holds us steady when the storm is at its fiercest.

That doesn’t mean we won’t bend. We may cry, question, struggle, and have days when our faith feels considerably less impressive than we would like. A rooted tree moves plenty in a storm. What matters is that it remains anchored to what is holding it.

And when the storm passes, we may discover that we don’t look quite the same.

A few weaker branches may be gone. Perhaps some things we depended upon more than we realized have been shaken loose. Other losses may simply hurt, and there may be no tidy explanation for them.

But when a branch comes down, light gets through.

Suddenly light reaches into places that had long remained hidden in the shadows. Perhaps God can do something similar with the openings left in us. We see another person’s pain differently now because we’ve hurt too. Something that once seemed terribly important doesn’t seem quite so important anymore. We recognize God’s faithfulness in places we never would have chosen to visit.

God can bring something good through the aftermath.

We don’t need to spend our lives watching the horizon nervously for the next dark cloud. We simply need to keep our roots near the River—knowing God, trusting His Word, and walking with Him in the ordinary days.

Storms will come. Some will shake us harder than others, and we may carry a few scars when they leave. But if our roots remain deep in Christ, we may bend, we may lose a branch or two, and we may come through looking different than we did before.

By the grace of God, we will still be standing.

If this Fireside Chat warmed your spirit and sparked fresh resolve to live what you believe, fan that flame with Scripture—“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). Pull a little closer to the Light, and carry it into the week ahead.

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