One of the tasks we had this month is to clean up the new church property. The property was originally an old storeroom for the castle next door, then became a disco/strip club and a restaurant. Lately, it's been abandoned and become a dumping ground for trash and paraphernalia from illegal or dubious activities. The grounds outside of the building are full of old clothes, trash, broken glass, and other things. Eventually, the church hopes to level the grounds and make them look nice. One of the things I did for a few days was dig out some stumps on the grounds.
As anyone who's ever done it knows, removing stumps is hard work. I started out innocently enough. I was digging out glass from the ground when I started encountering roots. I began excavating each root, bringing back memories of my and Jill's archeologist games as kids. I spent three days digging out the roots of one stump (mostly because all I had to dig with was a rock until the third day) and enjoying some time to think. Even though the work was hard, I was thankful for the chance to have a task where my mind was free to wander.
Those roots were stubborn. They ran deep, they clung to the dirt, and they interwove with each other. It reminded me of habits, specifically bad ones. So often, they take root in our lives, sending out tendrils and taking hold. It's hard to kick a habit, because the more you partake in it, the deeper the roots go. Like anyone, I have bad habits. One thing about the Race and living in community is how your bad habits come up time and again. It's frustrating at times, because you want to break those bad habits, and your teammates bring them up in an effort to help you in the process, but they're rooted too deeply. Digging them out is like trying to break the hard ground around roots with a rock. It's not until you ask Jesus to help you and He comes along with a shovel that things start to loosen. It's a slow, painful process. But eventually, that bad habit, that stump, pops out of the ground. You feel a sense of victory as you turn around to tackle more.
