Grace Day #14: The Invisible Roots
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9 (NIV)
The Journey
I have a prayer journal that dates back to 2010. It’s a worn, leather-bound book filled with names, dates, and scribbled requests. If you flip through the first half, you’ll see red checkmarks next to many of the entries—prayers answered, sicknesses healed, jobs provided. Those red checks are my monuments of faith.
But on page 42, there is an entry that has no checkmark. It just has a name: Dad.
For fifteen years, I have prayed for my father’s salvation. My dad is a good man, a moral man, but a hard man. He views religion as a crutch for the weak. He views Jesus as a fairy tale. Every time I tried to bring up faith, he would shut me down with a sarcastic joke or an icy stare.
“Don’t preach at me, Ben,” he’d say, turning up the volume on the TV. “I’m fine just the way I am.”
For the first five years, I prayed with fire. I believed that any day, the phone would ring, and he would be weeping in repentance. For the next five years, I prayed out of duty. The fire had cooled, but the discipline remained. But for the last five years? I admit, the prayers have become whispers. Hollow. “Lord, save him if You can. But I don’t think You will.”
Last month, I hit a wall. I went to visit Dad, and he was particularly cynical. He mocked the grace I said over dinner. He made a joke about “the man in the sky.” I drove home in tears, slamming my hand against the steering wheel.
“I’m done!” I yelled at the windshield. “I’m wasting my breath. You aren’t listening, God. If You wanted him, You would have turned his heart by now. I’m just annoying us both.”
I decided to stop praying for him. It hurt too much to hope.
A few days later, I was helping my neighbor, Mr. Russo, dig up some old fence posts in his backyard. Mr. Russo is eighty years old and has been gardening since before I was born. We were struggling with a particularly stubborn stump of a bush he wanted removed.
I was hacking at the ground with a shovel, sweating and frustrated. “This thing is dead, Mr. Russo,” I panted. “Why are the roots so deep?”
Mr. Russo leaned on his cane, watching me work. “That’s a wisteria,” he said. “Stubborn things. You can chop off the top, you can burn the branches, but the roots? They keep traveling underground. They look for water in the dark. You think it’s dead because you don’t see any leaves, but down there?” He pointed a crooked finger at the dirt. “Down there, it’s alive and fighting.”
He looked at me. “Ben, just because you can’t see the growth doesn’t mean it isn’t growing. Sometimes the most important work happens in the dark.”
I stopped digging. The shovel fell from my hands.
The most important work happens in the dark.
I realized I had been judging God’s activity by what I could see on the surface. Because Dad wasn’t coming to church, because he wasn’t quoting scripture, I assumed God was doing nothing. But I hadn’t seen the underground work. I hadn’t seen the thoughts Dad had at 2:00 AM when he couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t seen the softening of his heart when he watched me forgive someone or treat my wife with love.
I picked up the shovel, but my spirit felt different. The despair lifted, replaced by a gritty, quiet resolve.
The next Sunday, I went to Dad’s house. I didn’t bring a Bible. I didn’t bring a sermon. I brought a toolbox. I fixed his leaky faucet. I mowed his lawn.
When I was done, I sat on the porch with him, drinking iced tea. We watched the sunset in silence.
Suddenly, Dad cleared his throat. He didn’t look at me; he looked at his glass. “Ben… that guy at your church. The one who had the cancer surgery last month. How is he?”
I froze. I had mentioned that prayer request once, months ago, assuming Dad wasn’t listening.
“He’s doing well, Dad. He’s cancer-free.”
Dad nodded slowly. He took a sip of tea. “That’s good. That’s… good to hear.”
It wasn’t a sinner’s prayer. It wasn’t a revival. But it was a crack in the pavement. It was a tiny green shoot pushing up through fifteen years of concrete.
I drove home that night and opened my journal to page 42. I didn’t put a red checkmark next to his name. Instead, I wrote a new date and a new prayer: “Lord, thank You for the roots I cannot see. Keep digging. I won’t stop knocking.”
I learned that prayer is not about forcing God’s hand; it’s about joining God’s work. And just because the harvest hasn’t broken the soil yet doesn’t mean the seed is dead. It just means it’s not time for the reaping.
Heart of the Matter
We live in an “Amazon Prime” spiritual culture. We want two-day delivery on our prayers. When the answer doesn’t arrive on our timeline, we assume God has lost the order. We interpret His silence as a “No,” or worse, as indifference.
But Ben’s story illustrates the “Chinese Bamboo” principle. There is a species of bamboo that, when planted, shows absolutely no growth above ground for four years. The farmer has to water and fertilize bare dirt every day. If he stops, the seed dies. But in the fifth year, the bamboo shoots up to eighty feet tall in just six weeks.
Did it grow eighty feet in six weeks? No. It grew eighty feet in five years. The four years of invisibility were developing the root system to support the sudden height.
Your persistent prayers are not disappearing into a void. They are watering the underground roots. You are building a foundation for a breakthrough you cannot yet see. Do not stop watering just because you don’t see green yet.
Faith in Action
Is there a prayer you have given up on? A relationship, a healing, or a dream that you have stopped bringing to God because it hurts to hope?
Today, we are going to drive a “stake” in the ground. Find a physical object—a rock, a written note, or even a literal wooden stake in your garden. Place it somewhere you will see it. As you place it, say: “I am reclaiming this ground. I may not see the answer yet, but I refuse to stop watching for it. Lord, I am back on the wall.”
Every time you walk past it, let it remind you to whisper a one-sentence prayer for that situation.
Prayer for the Day
Lord of the Harvest, forgive me for my impatience. I confess that I grow weary when the horizon looks empty. Thank You that You are working in the silence. Thank You that You are moving in the hearts of people I love, even when they seem hardest. Give me the strength to keep sowing, keep watering, and keep believing, trusting that the harvest will come at the proper time—Your time. Amen.
Grace Note
“God’s delays are not God’s denials.” — Robert Schuller