A mighty oak tree adorns my daughter’s backyard. In Spring, its picture perfect buds awaken the squirrels to a new hotel and restaurant about to burst through the barren branches of old stomping and chomping grounds. Come Summer, the Oak’s artistic scene replicates canopies of shade refreshing parched beings – both four legged and two. With the onset of Fall, the mighty oak reflects a Norman Rockwell perfect replication of idyl relaxation transposing into manual labor. Humans rake the falling leaves, while critters harvest vittles to carry them through the cold barren months ahead. It’s the winter debut, however, that magnificently displays God’s rendering of Matthew 17:20. ”If ye have faith like unto a tiny mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible for you.”
Branches laid bare, the beauty of color removed, shelter from adversity removed and without a doubt, the Mighty Oak becomes the image of a Child of God’s strongest stance. In the event, this is not the picture in your photo album of God’s might displayed, let me etch the scene.
Stark and barren is your first glimpse. However, look closer. Stature is impeccably poised tall and defiant to wintry elements. The oak does not cower or bend in gale force winds. Perfect symmetry emboldens grandeur of creation to ooze from its core. Can you not, therefore, see the depiction of God’s child, at his/her strongest, in the snapshot of a mighty oak withstanding winter on earth?
When skies are sunny, our lives are well nourished and our storehouses are full is not when we most fully mirror the image, or meaning, of being God’s child. The strength and blessing that grows from being a member of God’s family is that our stature stands tallest in the winter winds of adversity. The world can strip a Child of God of all its outer riches, only to reveal the beauty, strength and perfect harmony of his/her inner core. In Spring, Summer and Fall, outer rains water the Oak Tree’s pretty picture; but roots deeply embedded in the soil of God’s nourishing baptismal waters emerge, flourish and shine mightiest in Winter. The question remains. In our identity of being a child of God, what season photographs our personal resemblance to our Father in Heaven?
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 