I am a gardener at heart so when I read Ephesians 3:17 "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love," my mind immediately started down the garden path and I was thinking about rooting plants and using rooting hormones to help establish strong roots from small cuttings. When it comes to rooting agents, there’s the kind you can buy that are essentially auxin-type hormones, and there are the kind you can use from ordinary items you have on hand. These include saliva (weird but true), apple cider vinegar, honey, and cinnamon. While not hormones, they can - through different mechanisms which often involve killing off bad bacteria and acting almost as a cleansing agent - help a plant establish roots and grow.So if I need to be more rooted and grounded in Christ's love, how do I do that and what are my spiritual rooting compounds? Here are a few spiritual equivalents that come to mind for these four ordinary rooting substances.
My spiritual equivalent of saliva is prayer -- I know this analogy is a bit odd, but bear with me. Aside from the obvious similarity that word of prayer come from my mouth, it allows me to share part of myself with Heavenly Father and connect me to my Savior. It is how I communicate my true desires and feelings and opens my heart to feel more of Christ’s love.
Apple cider vinegar’s spiritual equivalent is trials. Yup - ouch! It’s hard but true. Those sour, bitter experiences can just as easily draw me closer to my Savior if I turn to Him. The sourness of heart break, loss, and disappointment should be a wake up call to remind me to rely more on Christ to carry my burdens. Not my favorite rooting compound, but one that everyone has on hand.
Honey is the sweetness of gratitude. Just as honey is almost magical in its many abilities to cleanse, purify and nourish, so gratitude does the same things for our spirits. Nothing brings the Holy Ghost more efficiently and quickly than gratitude, and the Holy Ghost is how we feel Christ’s love. So the sweetness of gratitude is an effective spiritual rooting agent indeed.
Cinnamon is an antiseptic spice that shakes things up and adds flavor and depth. That is why I think the spiritual rooting equivalent to cinnamon is service. Service can definitively shake up our day, make things more memorable, and add a little spice to our lives. Few things soften and open hearts to love more than service. So whether it’s a hint of cinnamon in small acts of service, or some larger doses in more intense service opportunities, serving helps root us in Christ’s love as we become more Christ-like.
Yes, I have a gardener’s brain and a strange penchant for analogies with ordinary objects. But odd analogies aside, I know I could benefit from more heart-felt prayer, turning to the Savior in my bitter-sour trials, more sweet gratitude, and spicing up my routine with service. And faith tells me that all those spiritual rooting agents will keep me more grounded in Christ’s love.
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