自強之路

This is a true story happening in England when a famous writer of the best-seller "God, where are You?", Rave Zacharias, took a stroll with his wife.

One day a terrible storm hit their community near Buckingham Palace with no mercy. The wind brought down thousands of trees, yes, I mean thousands of them. But there was one thing Ravi was quite confused. All the trees brought down were so tall and thick yet with roots amazingly short. He didn't realize a thing about it till he discussed this with some of his friends: the reason why the trees there had so short roots was the underground water layer in the region was very close to the surface, so close that the roots didn't have to reach down so deeply to absorb water. And that's exactly why these thick trunks looked strong and chunky but with so short roots, which would never persist the heavy blows of storms. That's why they were all down, even after maybe hundreds of years' growing, all but in vain.

Therefore, having merely a root is not good enough for a tree to grow tough to be against strong winds; it needs a deep, fixed root as a good fondation to fight the bad weather, countless ruthless chellenges in the future.

It's the same as our faith. Faith is our fondation, on which we live and on which our lives begin to make senses. With good basis, one will not sway around, never confused again, not knowing for sure where he or she is about to go and never be distracked from the normal orbits to worldly concerns by one's busy, occupied and materialized modern life.


Translated from 活潑的生命