By
Dana Rausch
/ October 23, 2013
“The directions say stand back fifty feet.” my Dad read. “On the count of three be ready: One…two…three!” BOOM! Rock, sand and caliche shot fifty feet in the air. Then a deafening silence fell after the dynamite ignited.
We stood stunned at the magnitude of it all: the noise, force and violence necessary to generate a new hole. Yet it was essential to bring forth new growth. In order to plant trees we had to get rid of the barrier.
Caliche buried underground in deserts, is a crust or layer of hardened calcium carbonate that cements together with other materials like sand, gravel, silt or clay to form sedimentary rock. That barrier sits under the sand and makes it difficult or impossible to breakthrough. Therefore drastic measures are often necessary.
I have found in my personal life extreme actions are also needed.
Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it spring the issues of life.” Since motives, behavior, emotions, relationships and thoughts all begin in the heart it is imperative that we guard it or keep it. But I took it to an extreme.
As a young girl my heart was soft and pliable but as the years grew I learned to protect it. Little by little I erected things to build up my defense. One stone at a time I began building a wall. Sometimes I added sand or gravel as it grew in height. Cultivated slowly over the years, I was unaware that like caliche I was building a layer of hardened materials around my heart. It went undetected until I attempted to break up the fallow ground in my Christian life.
The distinct sound of shovel hitting rock rang in my ears as I tried unsuccessfully to dig the trench. The once fertile soil had grown hard and unyielding. Thirsting, weary and determined I trudged on only to continue to hit a barrier.
“Keep your heart…” means to keep it or guard it but it does not say to wall it off, build a barrier or lock everyone out.
Many times I have found myself not only standing behind my personally built barrier but located inside an igloo with walls up and over. Nobody is going to infiltrate my self-imposed barricade and that includes God.
· BOOM! Goes the stick of dynamite blowing apart the lies I have believed.
· BOOM! Goes the stick of dynamite blowing apart trying to earn my way to heaven.
· BOOM! Goes the stick of dynamite blowing apart looking to people for my worth.
· BOOM! Goes the stick of dynamite blowing apart placing people and things before God.
Thus begins the breakthrough for new growth in this season of my life…That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
Isaiah 61:3