And God Made The Trees

"And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Genesis 2:9

I was watching a movie last week about the story of Pocahontas. It was not the greatest movie, although I do think it was fairly accurate for the time period. Along the way there was a man trying to woo a young lady, and he was talking about how her heart had been broken, and she needed to move on. He compared her life to that of a tree- and I thought how wonderful that analogy was!

Let's think about life being a tree. A tree takes a very long time to grow to maturity. The large trees that make up a forest have likely been around for so many years- hundreds perhaps. In order for a tree to grow, it must have all the right nutrients- fertilizers and water in the form of rain. As the tree grows, sometimes disaster may befall it. A limb may be damaged in a storm, or a few branched ripped off by playing children, yet the tree grows on. Instead of withering up and dying over the loss of its limb, the tree tries to grow around the wound- creating a scar, yet it continues to grow up. It continues to reach for the sky, trying to grow into the beautiful tree that it wants to be.

Every seed that is planted has the potential to be a mighty majestic tree. Every single sapling that begins to grow has the potential within to turn into the mighty tree that it fell from.

Wow, is that like us or what?

"Then the trees of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth." 1 Chronicles 16:33

"You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Isaiah 55:12

Each and every one of us has potential inside of them. We have the potential to be great and mighty for the Kingdom of God! Every one of us! Each of us has a choice to make though as struggles come along. As we grow, limbs may break off- and these limbs would be parts of us that are not desirable- so they break off, and we learn from it, and continue to grow. We may still bear the scars of that break off, but grow we do, as each and every day we get a little closer to reaching out to heaven with our hands. Yet our growth also doesn't happen overnight. There may be times where it doesn't seem like we grow much at all- but if we dig deep with our roots, and reach out for that which sustains us, the growth process will continue. And then one day, we will no longer be that little tree- that sapling, instead, we'll be a more mature tree- bearing the scars of our mistakes, but proudly stretching out into the sky.