To Tend These Troublesome Giants

Spring Break was not one of beach and sun; honestly, we rarely have vacations on the coastal waters much to my wife’s chagrin. However, it was one of memory.

In front of my house stand several large oak trees that I have loved for years. I’ve stared up through their branches appreciating their shade and strength, so it was with pain that we decided one of them had to be taken down. A new front walk made it necessary. If it had to be done, I wanted to be the one who did it. However, it was quite near the house, so I needed help. A friend of mine, a no-nonsense tree guy, came over. 

The days before our scheduled drop, I spent a lot time looking up. I noticed that the branches of shorter trees had twisted and curved, stretching for the available light. “They’re about to get a lot more,” I thought to myself. “It’s tough to grow in the shade of another tree.” 

It’s hard not to think about God when looking up at a majestic tree. It’s a strong metaphor for life, I think.

“Are you satisfied with the shade you’re growing under?” Came a familiar internal voice. 

Truth is, things are good, but there have been moments where I’ve felt overlooked, unappreciated or forgotten by larger personalities or giftings. I wasn’t as grateful for the provision of God in those times, and may have nursed some envy and jealousy along the way. Yet today, standing in the shade of that grand tree, I could see how it has shaped me. 

With a huge rope tied high and slung around another tree, my friend and I fastened it to a pickup truck and I began to pull while my buddy notched and cut the trunk. With the whine of the chainsaw and the growl of the truck, slowly the tree began to give way. First crackling, then an awesome crash that shook the neighborhood, and then a much bigger project began. 

What was quick to fall now demanded weeks of effort. We made short work of limbs and branches, then loaded the truck with all it could carry, but the lion’s share lay heavy in my front yard. You don’t notice trees so much when they’re standing tall, but when spread across a yard, something has to be done. Alone now, I worked all day.

That evening I was overwhelmed. “There’s still so much, I can’t do all this,” I said to Jen as we looked out the front window. 

With back aching, I continued in the days to follow, slowly sawing and splitting, making gains against the fallen giant. 

I’d been overwhelmed many times before. And while I cut and split, I remembered when Jen had cancer, and the year-long uphill fight that it had provided. I wasn’t sure how to face those days with a little family, but took it one day at a time. I thought back to the days when we were considering a missionary lifestyle, stepping into a different kind of living rather than by a company paycheck. “How am I going to feed my family?” I asked the Lord. Again, a way was made by taking each day as it came. I remembered the day God invited us into foster/adoptive care, when we were almost empty nesters. “What are we thinking?” Yet day after day we see His hand in it all.

I recalled other times when things felt too much and too big, but small cuts on big logs eventually clears the field. 

After a few days I had created a beautiful stacked pile of split wood. A satisfied exhaustion greeted me as I lay my axe down. All that remained were six or seven enormous rounds of trunk that I could barely move. That afternoon I rolled those giants to the backyard, getting much of my project out of sight and nearer to the fire pit. 

With a good stash of seasoned wood, I started a roaring fire, and in short order had a deep base of coals. I hoped to burn some of the limbs that didn’t need splitting, and to my surprise they burned. It just goes to show that if you get the fire hot enough, even green wood will burn. I kept that fired stoked all day, eventually rolling those huge trunk pieces into the flames. Four huge rounds facing north, south, east and west seemed to engulf the pit but, slowly, that hot bed of coals did miraculous things. A poke here, a push there, anything to keep the optimal conditions of wood, coals, and oxygen in balance. I tended the fire for three days. To my amazement, these giant troublesome chunks of wood were slowly reduced to ash. 

I sat quietly that night, enjoying the soft white light of the moon resting on the yard and the glowing coals pulsing with radiant heat. “By morning, it might all be gone,” I thought.

“This is how you fight battles, Rus,” came the thought. Cultivate a heart that burns for God, tend it with prayer, and it will consume the least and the greatest of things that will enter your life. I poked and prodded that glowing heap long into the night. 

The next morning, only the edges of logs remained. Those massive problems had been reduced to nothing. All that mass accumulated as ash in the bottom of the pit. 

Nursing envy and jealousy devours the soul, while the heat of godly passion and prayer keeps life’s challenges in perspective.

How are you tending your troublesome giants?