Being Rooted in Love

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.  They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”  Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NIV)

Good morning!

It is hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone for another year.  Time seems to be flying by.  We hope that each one of you had a Merry Christmas and were overwhelmed with His presence and His love. 

As Chase and I sank into our couch Christmas night after we had put our tired boys to bed we spent some time reflecting on the past few weeks and what it has meant for our family to press into the love of our Father each day.  We are so grateful for the Christmas season, for the celebration of our Saviors birth and what it means to say, “love came down”.  Spending the last 25 days digging into the love that Jesus came down to give us has opened our eyes and our hearts. 

It is easy to let life get in the way, to wake up each morning and start the to-do list.  Our focus is on work, chores, kids, school, activities and sports.  But if we can learn to shift our focus from the daily tasks and all the world uses to distract us and let the love that we have received from the Father be bigger than all those things, something inside of us begins to change.  When we begin to grow in understanding of how truly loved we are, we can begin to root our identity there. 

And when we begin to root our identity in Jesus…

We will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  We won’t have to fear when the heat comes nor worry of the drought.  We can have confidence because we trust in the LORD.

And as we trust, we can let His streams of never-ending love continue to water us every day.

Blessings,

The Johnstons