The Time Factor

I grew up in the desert.  Brown, barren, desolate.  I told myself that when I grew up, I wanted to move where there were trees, glorious trees!  We now happily live in a neighborhood where the houses are small and the trees are big, and I adore the gigantic sweet gum tree in our little front yard.  One of its thick branches now holds a swing for our kids to whiz through the air on, or hang for long minutes watching the world go by.   This is our first spring in this house, and I'm watching my tree start to send out little sprigs of life.  I'm eagerly anticipating the gorgeous green that will fill up my front window in a few weeks, and daydreaming about sprawling out on a blanket under its canopy to read a book or have a picnic with a bunch of barefoot kids.  For me, trees provide happiness.

At a recent women's retreat, we were asked, "In what ways should our spiritual life compare to a grand and majestic old oak?"  I enjoyed mulling this question over in my mind, and I love the analogy.  Trees are balanced, half of the tree is above ground, and half of it is below ground.   A mature tree has deep roots.  The tree needs to be pruned to maintain integrity and health.

It is easy to carry this analogy over to our Christian life.  As Christians, we need to be balanced, be rooted in Christ, allow God to prune away the dead parts of our lives and the parts of us that are taking us in the wrong direction.

But here's the one that I want to think about today.  A majestic tree takes a long time to grow.  This is one of the major lessons God has been teaching me over the last few years.  Time.  It takes large amounts of time for God to bring us to maturity in Him.  I always want the short version.  I see a hero of the faith, and I want that kind of faith, that kind of courage, that kind of persistence in my life now.

Miles Stanford, in The Complete Green Letters, says, "It seems that most believers have difficulty in realizing and facing up to the inexorable fact that God does not hurry in His development of our Christian life.  He is working from and for eternity!"  and later he quotes A. H. Strong's illustration, "When God wants to make an oak, He takes an hundred years, but when He wants to make a squash, He takes six months."

Do I want spiritual fruit that is here today and gone tomorrow?  No, I don't want to be a squash. I desire a strong, balanced, fruitful spiritual life that resembles a majestic oak tree, and I've got to face up to the fact that this is going to take time - a lot of time.

A majestic tree, over the course of time, grows increasingly beautiful and useful, and gives glory to the Creator.  That's where we want to be headed, but with a realistic view that it isn't going to happen over night.  Let's pray for God to calibrate our hearts with His timetable.

Isaiah 61:3b  "They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor."