One of the most significant seasons that we can go through in life is the season where our roots grow down deep. It’s the season where, externally your life looks stagnant, but beneath the surface God is building a foundation that your destiny is dependent on.
Last month I began reading a book I actually bought years ago, Alephby Paulo Coelho. It’s amazing how timely books can be sometimes. There’s a chapter in it called “Chinese Bamboo,” where Paulo writes,
“I skim an article about Chinese bamboo. Apparently, once the seed has been sown, you see nothing for about five years, apart from a tiny shoot. All the growth takes place underground, where a complex root system reaching upward and outward is being established. Then, at the end of the fifth year, the bamboo suddenly shoots up to a height of twenty-five meters. What a tedious subject!”
That intrigued me so much when I read it. I thought to myself, “How often is it that we are growing, but no one believes that we are?”
I’m not kidding when I say that literally an hour after I read that chapter, one of my friends shared a video sermon onto Facebook where the man spoke on the concept of bamboo. He described the process of a farmer planting that bamboo. There he is, watering the bamboo shoot, every single day, but for years there’s nothing but a tiny shoot sprouting from the ground. Onlookers and passerby’s laugh at the farmer’s “craziness” to consistently care for something that bears no visible progress. But the farmer knows that that tiny bamboo shoot will not reach its fulness if he listens to the external voices that tell him to give up and not care for that which he knows is going to grow.
Last Sunday, the sermon I heard was about how God plants seeds in our lives. I remember specifically the speaker said, “There are many seasons we go through. Maybe, it’s a season of not growing upward, but downward. A season where God is putting down roots!”
The next day at Tea Lyfe’s monthly worship night, I got prayed over and received TWO words from TWO different people that had to do with seeds and growth. I was blown away by the Holy Spirit since neither of them knew of the sermon I had heard, or what God had been teaching me these past weeks.
The owner of Tea Lyfe said, “I just see roots growing down deep. I don’t see the tree, but I see the roots extending and reaching downward.” The next girl said, “You’re not buried, you’re planted.”
THEN, when I went home that night, I realized that earlier that same morning I had shared a small snippet of a sermon from Michael Todd, which literally bears the title, “Under Doesn’t Mean Over: Planted, Not Buried.” (Honestly I was like, “Holy Spirit ?????”)
In all these strangely (divinely) timed messages about seeds, roots, and growth I was led into a time of seeking what God was trying to show me. I knew that God was teaching me that even though I don’t see growth in physical and tangible means like a “successful” job title, finances, or some relationships—God was pulling me into a season where every good success is happening in a place that no one can measure or see apart from God.
God has been taking me in a deeper level of intimacy with Him, where negative mindsets are being broken and my past is being healed.
I asked Him what He wanted this blog to be about, and I felt the Lord say to remind His people that what others do not see, GOD SEES.
Others may not see what God is doing in your life, and you might not even see it in yourself, but God sees. He knows what is happening in your spirit. He knows the mental issues you have struggled with and knows what the process of breaking that off looks like. The process is anything but instantaneous. It takes years of God working intricately beneath the surface to make you stronger from the inside, so that at the right time, the external “sudden growth” is seen by many.
About The Author: Sarah Michelle Cruz
Sarah Michelle Cruz is a Whitworth University graduate and studied psychology and English Writing. Her heart beats for creating music and telling stories, while giving a voice to the voiceless. She currently serves with The Collide team and is completing her first fantasy novel and while also studying to be in full-time ministry. She has a call to missions and has been to Hong Kong, Colombia, Brazil, and the Philippines to serve and is currently preparing for Africa. She lives for the prayer, "Here I am, Lord, Send Me..." whether that is here or abroad, she will follow His call.