THOUGHTS ON A TOADSTOOL AND A TREE
A number of times and years ago now, Bonnie and I had the privilege of taking couples in ministry on an outdoor adventure. We went by sea kayaks to an island off the coast of Maine to camp and think biblically about the sufficiency and grittiness of grace for marriage and ministry.
One trip included a lot of rain and just outside our tent we watched a toadstool grow. It appeared overnight and seemed to grow and balloon to full size in a matter of hours. A misstep in the dark that night mashed and smashed it.
In John’s Island, South Carolina lives an oak tree that is thought to have sprouted from an acorn 1000 years before Columbus arrived in the “new world.” It has a circumference of nearly 25 feet and has survived countless hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Yes, strength and endurance do come to mind when one thinks of an oak tree!
While reading and preparing for some teaching, I came across a Scripture that caused this “collateral thought” which I’m sharing with you for this month’s blog about more than botany, but a botanical metaphor to encourage us spiritually.
Following the passage with which our Lord chose to inaugurate His public ministry (Isa. 61) is the remarkable thought that those who had been exiled with the accompanying grief, mourning and despair would be called, here it is, “oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor” (Isa. 61:3c).
I have no trouble thinking of myself as a spiritual toadstool that can puff up, swell with the moisture of pride rapidly. This inflated importance is so fragile and so quickly can be squashed by a careless misstep (a reality step we could say). I much prefer the thought of being an oak tree with its durable, tough and attractively-grained wood that is resistant to insects.
It doesn’t have to stay there as a wish, a “prefer,” a wistful fungal longing. The LORD is in the business of making toadstools into trees, oak trees of righteousness even. This is so clearly His work. We are His planting, dependent on His grace to transform us. Our time in the “forest” of this life is the time He is doing this miraculous, grace-filled work and His work is marvelous in our eyes.
The growth into an oak is much slower and more complicated but in the end the purpose of our lives is not to try to stay safe as fragile toadstools in the here and now but become a forever, attractively-grained oak of righteousness for His splendor and glory and to shout to all the other toadstools: “Look what the Redeemer/Botanist alone can do! Why He can grow toadstools into trees!” Let’s remember who we are, the purpose of life, whose we are, and what He is growing us into for His splendor and glory!
Growing because of Him,
Keith and Bonnie
