Solid Ground

Finding What Cannot Be Taken When Life Pulls Everything Out From Under You

Disruption has a way of exposing something we are often blind to—how much of our security, our identity, our sense of self was rooted in things that are not capable of holding us, of giving us solid ground.

I’m reading through the Bible chronologically again this year, albeit more slowly than in previous years. The other day, I arrived at Numbers 33.

By the time you reach Numbers 33, Aaron has died. Moses is nearing the end. And the Israelites stand at the precipice of the promised land after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Moses is soon to hand the reins over to Joshua, but before he does, he will position the Israelites to enter the land and remind them of their covenant with God, which he does in the book of Deuteronomy.

God brought them out of Egypt, where they had lived for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41). Some of those years, while Joseph was alive, had been good. Many years were full of slavery and oppression. And yet, that was what they knew; it was familiar. But God was uprooting them, leading them from the familiar into the unknown.

It is easy to miss how disruptive that would have felt. I am not a gardener, but plants may be a helpful illustration. A plant’s roots often grow deep and spread wide, even wrapping themselves around objects, grounding the plant and helping it survive in its environment. When you uproot plants (or weeds) even with the most tender care, you can hear their roots being torn from their place in the earth. It is a violent act.

An uprooted plant has been removed from its life source, and likely some of its roots were wounded in the process. It’s not far-fetched to think that it may have felt true to the Israelites, too. They had been removed from a land where they had meat to eat, water to drink, and a roof over their heads. Many left behind the only home they had ever known. Now, they find themselves in the wilderness, where the first obstacle they faced was no water to quench their thirst. It didn’t take long—despite the miracles they’d witnessed God perform on their behalf—for their lack of rootedness to give rise to the kind of fear that comes with uncertainty. That’s an understandable reaction when your life is topsy-turvy.

In times of disruption and displacement, it becomes a question of survival. Where will I find my next meal or drink of water? Will my children have what they need to survive? Will it be safe? All questions that arise from our vulnerability.

Some wrestled with fear, some with frustration. Some struggled to trust the Lord and stumbled along the way. Others rejected or replaced him with false gods. Ultimately, God said it was their sin and rebellion that led to the Israelites not entering the Promised Land for 40 years after leaving Egypt.

Their journey through the wilderness was a long, winding road full of ups and downs. Numbers 33 recaps their last 40 years in the wilderness, giving an account of each stage of their journey after leaving Egypt. It reads like one of those monotonous passages with endless genealogies or censuses that your eyes glaze over as you read. But something about the passage resonated. The Israelites moved camp 41 times in 40 years. Can you imagine how difficult that was? Even with God providing manna every day, that is a lot of displacement, a lot of not being settled in a place where your roots can grow deep and wide.

I have mentioned before that Ken and I sold everything we owned back in 2022 and moved aboard a sailboat. Our goal was to go on a marriage adventure and spend a season of time living differently, while we are still young enough to do so. Many people are enamored by what we are doing. It sounds glamorous and free from the constraints of normal life. And to be sure, we’ve had the adventure of a lifetime with many priceless moments. But it is a life of uprootedness.

We’ve moved our floating home 141 times since we pushed off the dock on December 27, 2023 (80 of them just last year). It’s wearisome. You just get to know a place—where to find groceries, or where to go to church—and it’s time to move on. Some places you are eager to leave, like the places with no water to drink (Numbers 33:14). Others are lovely, like those with twelve springs and seventy date palms, and you want to stay (Numbers 33:9).

If three years of living like a nomad has taught me anything, it is to hold everything with an open hand—homes, routines, friendships, even where I am going to sleep at night. Everything in this life is fleeting and fragile, and a life in constant motion makes it very difficult to pretend otherwise. The comfort of a normal, settled life can insulate us from that truth, but being uprooted has a way of stripping that away.

Homes, careers, communities, a sense of stability—these are all good gifts we can receive with gratitude. But they all come and go like the tide. When we allow our roots to grow deep into these things, they become the source of our comfort, security, and sense of identity. And when our roots are ripped from them, we can feel disoriented and unsure of who we even are. But that same disruption, painful as it is, can forge something deeper in us, if we let it.

When God uprooted the Israelites from Egypt, he was bringing them to a place where they could establish roots. But more than that, he was forming them into a people rooted in him. In Exodus 29:45-46, the Lord said, “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.”

This was a phrase he repeated in various forms throughout their rootless wilderness years, reminding them over and over again that their roots were not in a land, a kingdom, a conquest, or acceptance of foreign nations; they were in him and in who they were in relation to him first and foremost.

Change is one of the only assurances in life, which means we need to be rooted in something constant. That’s why, as Israel lived as nomads during those 40 years, God frequently sought to ground them in him. He is our constant, whether we live in the same town we were born in or the 41st place we’ve lived, whether we just started a new career or closed out a lifelong one, whether we’re headed into our 33rd year of marriage or a new life as a widow or divorcee.

The Scriptures return to this again and again. The psalmist writes, “His steadfast love endures forever,” and to ensure we hear him, he says it twenty-six times in a single psalm (Psalm 136). From the rubble of Jerusalem, Jeremiah writes, “His mercies, never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). God told the Israelites he would never leave them nor forsake them, and Jesus said the same thing to his disciples at the end of his earthly life: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Forever. Never. Always. The Scripture is not just describing a very consistent God; it is describing a God for whom inconsistency is impossible. And he wants us to root ourselves not in a place, a position, or a person, but in him. In who he is and who he is for us.

He is the resurrected, living and reigning King who said, “Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God” (Revelation 21:3, CSB). From beginning to end, he has always been leading us to himself.

The last four years have brought so much change in my life. So many goodbyes. So many uncertainties. And yet, wherever I am and wherever I go, God is always there. He promises that when I seek him, I will find him. Some days, he meets me in the Scriptures or my prayer journals. Sometimes, I find him while listening to a song or watching a sunset. Whatever church I go to, he is with me. Wherever I lay my head, he watches over me. Whatever country or state or anchorage I go to, he goes before, behind, and beside me. As the psalmist said, there is nowhere I can go to flee his presence (Psalm 139:7-12).

This is the solid hope that grounds us when our lives are anything but. You can uproot a plant from the earth. You can uproot a people from a place. You can uproot a person from everything they have ever known. But nothing can uproot us from the God who has us firmly in his hand.

Love,
CC

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Questions for Reflection

Engage the Scripture

1. The Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years before the Exodus. What do you think it cost them emotionally, spiritually, and practically to leave behind the only home most of them had ever known?

2. God repeatedly reminded the Israelites that he brought them out of Egypt “that he might dwell among them” (Exodus 29:45-46). What does that tell you about what God ultimately wanted from and for his people? What does it tell you about what he wants for you?

3. Read Psalm 139:1-12 slowly. You may want to read it a few times. What is the primary message the psalmist is conveying about God? What might that message offer you in times of disruption?

4. The article traces a thread from Exodus through Psalms, Lamentations, Matthew, and Revelation, God's promised presence through every era of redemptive history. What does that arc tell you about the consistency of God’s character?

Explore Your Story

1. When have you experienced a season of uprooting—a move, a loss, a transition, a relationship ending? How did it affect you physically, emotionally, spiritually?

2. Where have you been tempted to root your identity and security (i.e., a place, a career, a relationship, etc) rather than in God?

3. The Israelites responded to displacement with fear, frustration, and sometimes outright rebellion. Which of those responses do you most recognize in yourself during seasons of disruption?

4. What is the hardest thing for you to hold loosely right now?

Encounter the Savior

1. Jesus told his disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) right before ascending to heaven. Why is it significant that he said this at the moment of his physical departure? What was he asking them to trust?

2. John 10:28 promises that no one can snatch us from God’s hand. What would it mean for you to truly live from that security rather than just believing it intellectually?

3. Where in your life are you most struggling to trust that God is present? What would it look like to bring that specific place to him honestly?

Experience Shalom

1. The article ends with the image of being firmly held in God’s hand. Take a few quiet minutes to sit still and reflect on that image. What does it stir in you — comfort, resistance, longing, doubt? Why?

2. Breath prayers can ground us in times of disruption and the dysregulation they can bring. Practice saying a breath prayer during times of struggle. Place a hand over your chest as you breathe in and pray:

   Inhale: “My life feels uncertain.”

   Exhale: “But God is my firm foundation.”

   What shifts, if anything, as you rest in that truth?

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