Deep Roots

Deep Roots

Blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. . . . Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Where do the roots of your faith come from? I didn’t meet my biological father until I was twenty-eight years old. After we met—and forged a relationship—I discovered the roots of my own faith. They were deep roots. My grandfather had been a church planter. My great-great grandfather had been a missionary in Canada. My great-great-great grandfather had been a missionary and circuit preacher to early settlers of Indiana. There are even Christian books written about some of my ancestors. Amazing!

Likewise, the roots of Amish faith go deep. Amish roots stretch back to sixteenth-century Europe. During the time of the Protestant Reformation, the religious ancestors of the Amish were called Anabaptists (rebaptizers) because they baptized adults who had previously been baptized as infants in a Protestant or Catholic church.

These Anabaptist groups spread rapidly, and religious authorities rose up against them. In a span of just a few decades, more than twenty-five hundred men and women died in prison, were burned at the stake, were drowned in rivers, or lost their heads to executioners’ swords. Yet instead of withering or dying away, the persecuted Anabaptists scattered into rural hideaways, where the groups continued to grow and bear fruit despite the hardship. As these people gradually fled to other parts of the world, they carried their faith with them.

The type of faith these men and women had comes only when we sink our roots deeper into the living water and discover God is always enough. Think about your personal history. Do you have a heritage of faith? If so, thank God. If not, ask God to make you the one who will spread the Good News to anyone along your path.

Lord, thank You for the Christian believers who went before me, for their faith and their example of staying strong and letting their roots grow deep into You during hardship. Help me, Lord, to trust in You with that same hope and confidence.