Ever buy a lush beautiful plant out of a greenhouse, only to take it home and it looks like it’s dying right in front of your eyes? Transpiration changed. Transpiration is a plant process where water moves from the roots through the plant, then out of the leaves, stems, and flowers. Water is a vital necessity for plants but 97-99.5% of water taken up by the roots is cast out into the air through transpiration.
The reason your plants struggles right away after bringing it home from the greenhouse is the changing transpiration rate. While a plant is in a greenhouse, it’s 70 degrees 80% humidity and fairly constant. The plant has settled in to what it needs. Take it home to the possibly cooler air with lower humidity and the plant suddently needs to transpire water faster or the tips dry out. Or you over water the plant faster than it can transpire (because the cool air is hindering growth) and the roots get damaged.
Plants need time to adapt to a new normal even as things change. A hot dry day means more transpiration aka… more watering. A cool damp fall means less transpiration, less water.
So what’s with the biology lesson… You and I enter into life with different demands placed on us. In difficult times when more is demanded of us, we wonder why we feel overwhelmed. Anytime something new is added to our life it demands more from us, good and bad things. Marriage, new child, job, health issue, virus, job loss, new hamster, helping parents… the list goes on and on really. I think we understand the big moments, I know we don’t give much consideration to the numerous small things, the ones that break camel backs.
People talk about burn-out, I think it is nothing more than transpiration issues for people. We are not infinitely resourced people, there is a God given gift of limits for all of us. We are living in a new season where much is being demanded of us OR much that is new is being demanded of us. If our root system is only used to X, it has a difficult time with X+Y.
John 15 gives us some insight into bearing fruit by being attached to the vine. The life of Jesus is seen as a testimony of one needy person after another coming to him, to get something from him. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when more is coming out from us, than is coming in to us. This is the reason Jesus spends time with His Father as part of His day. Branches can’t bear fruit by themselves, they need the vine, need sap, need water to flow through, giving away 97% and keep 3% (Makes 1 John 4:12 seem even more interesting). I’ll let you look it up.
In our rush to “handle” all the issues that surround us, don’t be surprised by issues of transpiration, recognize them for what they are, life is demanding more of you, more of me. But God is equal to such a task and our connection with him is what will carry you and I through. When feeling on that verge of overwhelmed know that we can cast our cares on the Lord and He is the one who sustains us, but also most of the water isn’t for us… back to 1 John 4:12… seriously, you didn’t look it up yet!!??
Shalom
Truth, Grace, and Time 