Water It!

Wood from a bamboo tree is incredibly versatile. It can be whittled into kitchen utensils while also constructed to reinforce bridges that can support the weight of a truck. It has medicinal purposes that can help treat certain diseases and at the same time used to build furniture. The list goes on – musical instruments, bicycle frames, fishing rods, toys, textiles – they can all be made from bamboo!

Now of course for bamboo to be used in all these ways it has to grow first. And this is where you may want to take a special interest because there’s actually a lot we can take away from learning about how bamboo trees grow.

You see, the process to grow a bamboo tree is quite remarkable. When a farmer plants a seed they go out and water it every single day for an entire year. But after one year of watering there is nothing to show. No sapling. No stem. Just dirt. Yet the farmer continues to water the soil day in and day out. After two years the result is still the same – just a pile of dirt where the seed was planted. The farmer endures year after year for five full years watering this plant with no visible signs of growth. Finally, by year six this seed that the farmer has been faithfully watering will grow into a 90-foot tree in just six weeks!

Now, does this mean for those first five years while the farmer was watering the seed that the tree wasn’t growing? Of course not! In fact, during all that time the tree was building a strong and intricate root system so that it could support the eventual rapid upward growth. But this growth was all occurring under the soil, invisible for anyone to see. And yet all that time the farmer remained persistent, watering the seed day in and day out.

And so it is for a lot of areas in our own lives. Have you ever worked toward something but felt like you weren’t making any progress, like there was no visible signs of growth to show for it? Maybe you’ve been looking for work and are doing all you can to network and job search but you’re still unemployed, or underemployed. Maybe you’ve been on a health journey to lose a few pounds and you’re eating better and exercising more, but every time you step on the scale the number is the same. Or it could be that you’re trying to grow in a new spiritual discipline yet despite your efforts you don’t feel closer to God like you thought would. If you can relate to this feeling of working towards something but thinking that you don’t have anything to show for it, then take heart.

Keep watering it! Remain persistent in what habits you are trying to build, or what goals you are trying to achieve and be reminded that just like the bamboo tree, perhaps growth is happening, perhaps a breath through is coming, but it’s all occurring beneath the surface. God wants good things for us, but sometimes he just needs us to build up our roots so that we can receive the abundant blessings he has instore when the time is right!