Oak Trees and Flowers

Here's a funny on me. My co-worker gave me two burr oak acorns and I planted them in pots. They both grew up and were doing well, one of them died off, but the other one has flourished. It's beautiful and it's oak-shaped leaves made me think about how one day it would be a big old oak tree somewhere on our property and I thought of telling our grandchildren, 'I planted it from an acorn, but look at it now.'

Well, last weekend I noticed that it seemed to be growing a couple of blooms and I didn't know that oak trees bloomed, but what do I know? So, Sunday evening I was walking Penny and went past the 'dead-man' flower bed at the beginning of our driveway and lo and behold - an 'oak tree' is also blooming there! Hmmmm, how does that happen? There are no oak trees around us. I'd like to think that some bird or other quirk of nature has caused an acorn to land in that flower bed also. However, the truth seems to be that the beautiful plant growing alone in its pot on our back deck, that I have watered and fertilized and talked to and about, is not an oak tree after all, but a lowly weed with oak-shaped leaves and purple blooms. So, I've been babying a weed!

But I think there's a lesson here beside the fact that maybe I need to get a book about trees and weeds so I can tell the difference!

Is the plant any less beautiful now that I know that it's future is not the huge oak tree I envisioned? It seems like the greater value I placed on it was off in the future instead of the day-to-day beauty of it growing and now blooming a beautiful flower. I know people who ask, 'why doesn't God just zap us on to Heaven when we get saved, because this world is no longer our home?

True, eternity with our Savior can't be compared with any great things or beautiful things that we will experience here and even the difficult and hard stuff pales in comparison to the glory that is revealed in us. But since God doesn't zap us into glory as soon as we're saved, He must want us to bloom and grow in spite of everything that we encounter on this side of eternity.

Heaven is there, it's our reality, but living this life so that we are a witness of His glory and power must be of great value to Him also. There is a scripture in the Old Testament, I can't find it right now, but it speaks of this very thing, of living heaven on earth. Then of course, Jesus speaks of this in the prayer He taught the disciples -- 'Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.'

I still want an oak tree though. I'll plant the weed near it and tend to both of them and remember that each of us has a purpose to witness His glory and power right where we are today!