Uprooted

There are many things that can be uprooted in this world. I watched many of them come up this last week with the wind. Stop signs snapped in two and blown away. Fences destroyed and falling over, power lines broken and lying in the road. Power polls falling over. Trees split in two with branches broken off. And whole trees completely uprooted and on their sides.

While looking at these trees, I realized something about them. Most of them that had fallen over were pine trees. Trees that where tall, wide and fat with needles. Trees that had grown upward for years. But
I also realized that they were trees with very short root systems. They all had many roots but none of them were very long or went very deep into the ground. The root systems had been good for the threes and had kept them growing and standing upright through everyday life. But their systems had failed them when the true trial of the wind came. With the wind blowing strong each on of the trees could not stay standing. They were quickly uprooted and left alone on their sides. They had crumpled to the ground and were left to be chopped up and thrown away.

I realized in a way we are like these trees. We grown up in the world. A world filled with destruction and trials as much as it is filled with good. And as we grow up in this world we need to make sure that we are growing down as well. Each of us have our own root systems that need to be growing. And they need to be growing deep into spiritually solid ground. For it is our root system that will either keep us strong and standing tall or crumble when the wind comes.

I started thinking about my own root system and realized that currently I have not been doing much to strengthen it. In fact, I am pretty sure that some of the things I have been doing have probably weakened it. And I decided that some things were going to have to change.

Since that storm I have continued to think about uprooted trees. I have also continued to think about my own root system and what I want it to be like. Through all of this thinking, I realized along the way some of the things that help strengthen it and that help it grow. and I realized that it always seems to come back to the little things that I am realizing in fact are not so little. These would be the things of prayer, reading and studying the scriptures, attending all church meetings, fasting, temple attendance, faith, charity, and repentance.  It is all of these things and more that not only help to build and strengthen our foundation, but strengthen our root system as well. It is by doing these little things that give us the strength and power to put off, and one day overcome, the natural man that is within us all. These are the things that help us stand mighty and strong so that when the winds come we shall be able to remain upright and be even stronger for it. For it is only by growing deeper that we are then able to stand taller.