Months ago someone told me that we could learn from nature just as Jesus taught in parables about mustard seeds and 'a righteous man is like a tree'.
So here are two of my observations about a tree:
1 Only rooted in the springs of life will it flourish. But it also needs earth, dense solid foundation (the bible). From this grows the beautiful branches that we think of as trees. But what comes before the branches? The trunk. The trunk is large and solid and true and straight. It is the foundation for all of our meanderings in the wonderfulness that is our God and his manifestation in creation. This trunk is the solid truths about God that go unchanged from age to age. If you have ever heard me use the word 'linear', it means a definite truth and way of living. A trunk is linear.
2 A tree, when it dies, rots from the inside first. Have you ever reached your hand into the hollow inside cavities of a tree? I was running around a park recently and found quite a few dying trees (I don't know what is killing them). But one in particular was cleanly hollow and still had healthy looking bark on the outside. What happens when our core dies? What do empty people look like? Just like everyone else. But will it live long? No. I began climbing on one of the trees but stopped when it started to give way.
So two lessons: ground yourself in the word and truths, only then can you flower out.
Beware of losing your core, because it is hard to detect from the outside. We should be in the habit of digging into our core regularly to test it and strengthen it.
