Lessons from Trees

Remember my crazy neighbors?

Remember how I decided to try to love em instead of building fences between us?

Well, let’s just say I’m good but not that good…I decided to put a natural fence between us…..Trees!!

I felt like trees are pretty and natural, and at the end of the day, my neighbors may appreciate the added privacy as well as I do.

And the truth is we’re not in heaven yet.  No sense in trying to be perfect yet…

But here’s what I’ve found out about trees. You need to water them. They need sun. And when they start looking brown, there is a problem Houston.

One out of the 6 trees has been troublesome. I trouble shot and realized I hadn’t gotten the memo about watering it. My lawn guy showed up 3 days in a row to help me with that. The garden hose I had wasn’t long enough. He brought me an extension.

I found out that even a good man like him runs out of favors.

So I was left to tend to the tree on my own.

I started watering it.

Then a couple of days ago, I walked up to it and it occurred to me that if I removed the brown leaves it would look green.

So I painstakingly removed every brown leaf I saw.

Surprise of surprises, the tree is starting to look healthier.

Lest I get ahead of myself I won’t declare it completely out of the woods yet. With my luck I’ll be blogging about my dead tree in a couple of days and trying to come up with a lesson about life in it.

But for now here’s what I’ve learned.

John 15:5 says “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing”.

Jesus is the vine. I am the branch. Together we make a tree.

God is the vinedresser.

When I start to look brown, I’ve got to be watered. God does that when I get into His word.

When some leaves die, God has to clean them up.

Ouch.

And sometimes, even when I seem to be bearing fruit, He prunes me for next season.

Again – ouch. But this one is a good kind of ouch. It’s for my good and greater fruit.

I like that!

How’s your tree looking?

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