ROOTS

There is something about a root system of a person. There is something about a root system of an organization, family, neighborhood, business center, and a tree. Roots matter because they are connected to a history. History matters because it is connected to the present and future. Does God ever work in the present at the expense of history? Hmmmm.... Will God destory roots to build a new tree? My first thought is no. My second thought is no. And my third thought is no. So....what does it mean to live in the present in such a way that honors roots and history?

Root systems can be healthy and growing or infected and stunted. I think we all live with a certain amount of infected roots, but we also live with a healthy sense of who we are and where we come from......if we want to take the time to investigate.

I have been investigating my root system. You know things like what shaped my life into what it is today...family, neighborhood, city, church, relationships, teachers, sports, college, wife, and kids. I began this thought journey about 4 years ago and it has come to a partial, but a more realistic realization in the last 45 days.

Recently, I moved my family back to Des Moines which is the mecca center of my root system. It is where I spent 18 years of my life in the same house, same backyard, same neighborhood and same city. It is where I attended two schools and two churches. It is the place that shaped my view of the world until I actually encountered the world.

I am now "coming home" with new ideas, new concepts, new perceptions, new dreams, new visions and new realities that will fuse with my root system. What does it mean when a person's life shaped by a certain root system is presently being reconnected to a old root system? I have no idea, but I am excited to learn how God wants to take my root system and fuse it into the realities of today for the sake of today and tomorrow. I am not sure what this is going to look like, but I am anxious to see what the "new tree" will look like.

Stay tuned as I write more about this reality......

Well, let me take a moment right now and write about one experience. I enrolled my kids in the same elementary school that I attended as an elementary student. Walking into those hallways after 18 years was a rather nostalgic experience. Same smells. Same look and feel, but different people. I actually had the opportunity to teach the students, teachers and parents during one of my Study Smarts workshops. It was a strange feeling looking out into the crowd and seeing some of the same teachers that taught me and some of the student faces resembling those of my friends. I came to find out later that some of them were actually kids of my old friends. How awesome is that?

What I learned from that experience is that if I leave a place well, I can always return to it with hope and high expectations. It really made me stop and thank God that despite myself, He allowed me to leave well so I could one day return and see different branches grow out of a root system that started some 30 years earlier. Roots and history matter.