“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” - Colossians 2:6,7
The bonsai tree craze
I am a proud owner of a bonsai tree. My fascination with these dwarf trees started when I watched a movie called kill bill, there was a fight scene in which a background shot of an ancient bonsai tree captured my attention. Amidst all the clatter and chaos of the fight, all I could think of was that miniature version of a tree. Is it a shrub? It doesn’t look like it. How do you keep a tree that small?
How old is that? It looks ancient and worn out. A miniature acacia tree would be so cool!
How about an apple tree? Delicious miniature gala apples hanging down, mmmmm i could pluck and eat them whenever I watch a movie. What if I cultivate a field of bonsai apple trees? Then sell them in the mass? That was a peek into my thought process and how bonsai trees ran through my mind.
Fast forward to a few years later and now I own one. I am not a self-proclaimed professional bonsai taker but I know a few things about the art of making bonsais.
It turns out that you can make any tree a bonsai tree as long as you stunt it’s growth thoroughly and consistently.
The secret of the art to keeping a bonsai small is to trim its roots in order to starve it and deprive it from the nourishment it needs for growth. A trimming of the leaves is also done to ensure that the tree does not eat too much sunlight. It is also advised that you keep the tree enclosed in a small pot to keep the roots from growing deep.
If done successfully, a bonsai will appear to be a tree seen through panoramic view while boasting of it’s old age.
A bonsai Christian
You can be a bonsai Christian. A Christian who remains in a small pot, not rooted deep in Christ. You are deprived of nourishment and sustenance, the necessities of fruit-bearing and growth. Yet you are content in getting by with little to no food.
A Sunday service, a quick prayer before meals, read the Word of God if you have time out of your busy schedule. It’s enough to “tend” to your Christian walk. You look like a seasoned Christian, yet your appearance is small.
The role of the word of God in fruit-bearing and growth
We are called to be “rooted” in Christ where our spiritual nourishment and sustenance solely come from. We are to bear good fruit, but the question then is how do we bear good fruit? Learn from the example of the bonsai tree, we must strive not to starve ourselves but rather we must EAT in order to catalyze growth.
What is the food for fruit-bearing-faith? Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God” – Matthew 4:4. It is the Word itself that gives us life abundantly. This is the food we need for fruit-bearing and growing faith.
Let us press on a little further.
Jesus said, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you” – John 15:7.
The best way to see what it means for the words of Jesus to abide in us is to look at what Jesus says about abiding a few verses earlier. In verse 5 He says, “Whoever abides in me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit.”
Notice the parallel.
In verse 7 He says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,”
and in verse 5 He says, “Whoever abides in me and I in Him...”
I think the point of this switch is to reveal to us how Jesus abides in us, specifically, by His word abiding in us. Meaning to say, when we let the words of Jesus abide in us means letting Jesus Himself abide in us.
The point I want you to see and understand is that: if we are to be “rooted” in Christ and drawing spiritual nourishment and sustenance from Him in order for growth and the bearing of fruit , then we must abide in Him and Him in us.
And just as I have shown that letting the Word of God abide in us means letting Jesus abide in us.
“Whoever abides in me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit.”
To deny yourself the reading of the Word of God is to deny yourself of food and a healthy, fruitful Christian walk. And in a deeper, serious level, it means you are not abiding in Christ.
That is how we stop ourselves from becoming bonsai Christians; we must be reading the Word of God everyday with fervour and tenacity as if it was water, sunlight, and fertile soil.
For in reading the word of God, we are in reality, tapping into an unlimited resource of nourishment and sustenance for fruit bearing and growth.
