The Test

                Tall, substantial, the hickory tree stood in our neighbor’s yard for at least the seventeen years we’ve lived in our house. Certainly it’s been there much longer. It’s a native hardwood, and they don’t grow rapidly. It stood with others like it, harboring squirrels, birds, and myriads of insects. The hickory even wore a birdhouse strapped around it like a belt of honor—stalwart and useful.

                Winds blow across our backyards—bitter winter drafts bear down unmercifully in the cold season, and our trees give up a branch or two and a sprinkling of barren twigs. Yet they bear up, standing together, dormant, hunkered down until spring.  Yet spring can also be unkind. Temperatures, a mix of cold and warm, whip up dark skies and the occasional wail of a tornado alarm. In spite of it all, the hickory stood.

                Last Friday was different. The summer wind that sprang up brutally raced through nine states, blasting everything in its path with ninety-one miles an hour of punch and power. Again the hickory took a beating. This time the tree could no longer withstand the pummel, and the wind snapped it at the ground, like the top of a carrot breaking from the root in hardened soil.

                                                                    

                Then the tree, lush with leaves, without a trace of weakness or disease, exposed its sham. It was rotted in the core! Who knew? Who would have guessed? The storm, the fierceness of the wind, tested the strength of the hickory and found it sick and incapable of standing.

                I can’t help thinking about the Christian life when I think about that hickory lying felled in my neighbor’s yard. Where is the rot in my life? Where is my faith pulpy? The other day I realized that things had been going on well, and I wondered what wind would blow up for another opportunity to test my wind resistance. Soon one sprang up.

 I can’t lie to you and say that my stomach didn’t instantly pinch and my voice get shaky. But I did think about Jesus, who fixed his eyes on Calvary, purposefully moving toward the cross. I don’t think he clapped his hands in happiness when the cruel crown of thorns went on his head or when they flogged him, ripping his flesh off, or when they pierced his hands with nails. I do think he fixed his eyes on what all the horror would accomplish (Hebrews 12: 2). Our suffering doesn’t buy our salvation at all, but our trials and difficulties test our faith and expose the weakness in our lives and give us the opportunity to grow strong in the Lord and bring him glory.

So, my neighbor’s tree is down, but I don’t have to go down when tested. Neither do you.  Instead . . . consider him who endured such opposition . . . so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:3, NIV)