Acorns

My parents had lots of oak trees in both their front and back yards. These tall, healthy specimens provided welcome shade during the summer. But they also generated acorns during the fall. Bushels and bushels of them, which had to be raked up from the grass or swept up from the driveway. Some of the more aggressive dark brown nuts quickly took root in the soil and had to be pulled up by hand or dug out with a trowel. Regardless of how they were gathered, they all ended up in the same place – the pile of yard waste in the remotest part of the back yard. Over the course of time, I must have transported and dumped tens of thousands of these little troublemakers.

These memories came to mind recently after I read a passage in a relatively new edition of a paraphrase of the Bible:

God’s kingdom is like an acorn that a farmer plants . . .
in the course of years it grows into a huge oak tree,
and the eagles build nests in it.
                                                   – Matthew 13:31,32b (The Message, 2018)

It occurred to me the main difference between the seed Jesus spoke about and the ones I was acquainted with is intent. The acorns in my parent’s yard were randomly dropped. The acorn the farmer planted had been intentionally selected and then carefully sowed in rich soil.

I very much want my life to be one that God has intentionally planted and grows for His use.

Every tree that wasn’t planted by my Father in heaven
will be pulled up by its roots.
                                                    – Matthew 15:13 (The Message, 2018)