Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul
Feeling worn thin? Come find rest.
The Blue Ridge Parkway meanders through miles of rolling Virginia mountains. It’s a route made famous by natural beauty and the simple rhythms of rural life.
And it’s in this setting that Hannah Anderson began her exploration of what it means to pursue a life of peace and humility. Fighting back her own sense of restlessness and anxiety, she finds herself immersed in the world outside, discovering a classroom full of forsythia, milkweed, and a failed herb garden. Lessons about soil preparation, sour mulch, and grapevine blights reveal the truth about our dependence on God, finding rest, and fighting discontentment.
Humble Roots is part theology of incarnation and part stroll through the fields and forest. Anchored in the teaching of Jesus, Anderson explores how cultivating humility—not scheduling, strict boundaries, or increased productivity—leads to peace. “Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden,” Jesus invites us, “and you will find rest for your souls.”
So come. Learn humility from the lilies of the field and from the One who is humility Himself. Remember who you are and Who you are not, and rediscover the rest that comes from belonging to Him.
From the Back Cover
Feeling worn thin? Come find rest.
Nestled in the simple rhythms of rural life, taking cues from forsythia, milkweed, and wild blackberries, Hannah Anderson meditates on the pursuit of peace and its natural companion, humility.
Part theology of incarnation, part stroll through fields and forest, Humble Roots reveals how cultivating humility—not scheduling or increased productivity—leads to true peace. By remembering who you are and Who you aren’t, you can discover afresh your need for God and the rest that comes from belonging to Him.
So come. Consider the lilies of the field, and learn humility from Christ Himself.
Top Highlights
“knowing ourselves as creatures—also helps us see the extent of our pride in our everyday choices” (source)
“ not have enough facts; she is unwise because she doesn’t submit to the source of wisdom Himself” (source)
“process of ripening on the vine, not simply the process of turning red” (source)
This is an exquisite book. In Humble Roots, Hannah Anderson intends to make us gardeners . . . to plant and tend that rarest of cultivars, humility. Humility orients us rightly toward our bodies, emotions, and intellect. It orients us rightly toward our possessions, desires, and circumstances. It orients us rightly toward the cross. And nurtured carefully in the fertile soil of grace, humility grants us a harvest of true rest. Wistful, nostalgic, and deeply wise. I read it through tears.
JEN WILKIN
Bible teacher and author of Women of the Word and None Like Him
Hannah’s use of the gardening metaphor was so beautiful that I started to long for a rural home where I could can my own green beans or pick blackberries. Humble Roots is a concise invitation (without how-to’s) to put off the pride of accomplishment, self-trust, and works righteousness, and enter into the humility that is not only the door to true Christianity but also the daily life of deep faith.
ELYSE M. FITZPATRICK
Author of Home: How Heaven and the New Earth Satisfy Our Deepest Longings
A beautiful, poignant, and wise book. You will see connections between God’s world and His Word that you have never noticed: between tomatoes and impatience, honey and competitiveness, soil and resurrection. And if you’re anything like me, you will find yourself rejoicing.
ANDREW WILSON
Teaching Pastor at King’s Church London
Author of The Life We Never Expected and Unbreakable.
Hannah Anderson takes being a locavore even more seriously than farm-to-table restaurants and farmer’s market goers. She takes it to the most local place of all: our own hearts. This is the book I’ve been wanting on the shelves of Christians everywhere.
LORE FERGUSON WILBERT
Writer at Sayable.net, Christianity Today, Revive our Hearts, She Reads Truth, and more
God made us to be close to the ground. So it’s fitting that Hannah Anderson roots her clear and compassionate teaching in stories close to the ground. The result is nourishment for our souls. Anderson replants us in the Father’s provision, wisdom, and care.
KATELYN BEATY
Managing Editor, Christianity Today magazine
Author of A Woman’s Place
C. S. Lewis famously wrote that humility is not thinking less of ourselves; rather, it is thinking of ourselves less, and in such a way that frees us to redirect our energies toward God and those He has given us to love. Using one of God’s favorite places and metaphors, the garden, coupled with endearing and sometimes humbling anecdotes from her own life story, Hannah paints a compelling picture of why we should, and ways that we can, pour contempt on our pride. Please read this book. It will renew your perspective, and it could change your life.
SCOTT SAULS
Senior Pastor, Christ Presbyterian Church, Nashville, TN
Author of Jesus Outside the Lines and Befriend
Hannah has written a simple but profound book. Her earthy style of writing accents the deep truths of Scripture in a way that is accessible to those of us who most need to hear this message. I predict this book will become a classic on the subject.
WENDY ALSUP
Author of Practical Theology for Women and The Gospel-Centered Woman
Blogger at www.theologyforwomen.org
This is just the kind of book I love: readers are promised a meal—and Humble Roots delivers a feast. With serious biblical reflection and vivid storytelling, Hannah Anderson compels us to seek humility. Rooted in Jesus, we abandon our illusions of control; we embrace our limits; we learn to depend.
JEN POLLOCK MICHEL
Author of Teach Us to Want, Christianity Today’s 2015 Book of the Year
Humble Roots is soulful spirituality at its best—earthy, embodied, and energizing. Anderson beckons us to reconsider both the rhythms of God’s creation and the frantic pace of our lives. The gospel brings reconciliation of all things in heaven and earth. This includes our God-formed bodies to the land God created for us.
DANIEL MONTGOMERY
Lead Pastor, Sojourn Community Church, Louisville, KY; founder of the Sojourn Network
Author of Faithmapping, PROOF, and Leadership Mosaic
I can think of nothing that might fix what ails this increasingly chaotic, power-hungry world more than a dose of humility and deeper rootedness. Whether you’re a city slicker, a suburban dweller, or a country bumpkin, these true parables—lovely memories of rural life seasoned with sharp insights—will hit you right where you live.
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR
Author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me and Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More: Poet, Reformer Abolitionist
Product Details
- Title : Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul
- Author: Anderson, Hannah
- Publisher: Moody Publishers
- Publication Date: 2016
- ISBN: 9780802494450
