An Insignificant Sapling in a Plastic Bag

Wearing the best grin a grade-eighter could possibly muster without feeling silly, he handed me a small plastic bag. “It’s a tree and we have to plant it,” he said,  unwaveringly. I looked at the object in question: an eight inch Blue Spruce sapling. The roots were half as long as the wanna-be tree and I knew in my heart the game was over before it started. This little twig didn’t have a chance. Nevertheless, we spent a portion of my younger son’s lunch hour digging a hole and planting the contents of the plastic bag under our dining room window among the Hosta plants. As I looked over my shoulder at our completed task, I sighed, knowing that our effort to add to the beauty of God’s creation was all for naught.

But unbeknownst to me, the sapling, nestled under the shade of the broad Hosta leaves, was well protected from the afternoon summer sun. When winter came, snow built up and banked against the wall of our house, and once again the tiny sapling was well protected, only this time from the wind and wintry weather under a blanket of snow that God provided.

When spring arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the twig had survived, albeit only eight inches tall. And as I looked at the surroundings in which it was growing, I knew it had to be transplanted if it was to survive. Besides, I didn’t need a Blue Spruce—or any tree for that matter—growing against our dining room window! So, to the back of the yard it went, protected once again, but this time by small, white wire fencing in event that young eyes missed it while cutting the grass.

In 2001 we decided to sell our  house and move to a condo. By then the ‘twig’ was a fourteen-year-old Blue Spruce tree that stood three feet tall. I had had my doubts it would survive the first transplant from bag to dirt, let alone a second transplant to the back of our yard; but it had. So there was no way we were leaving it behind when we moved! But would it survive a third transplant? And where would that be? If we took it to the condo, it would no longer be our tree as we would have no choice but plant it in the common area. There was only one option: our trailer site at Muskoka Bible Centre on Mary Lake near Huntsville.

Okay! I hear ya: “It’s only a tree!” But, did you know that other than people and God, trees are the most mentioned living thing in the Bible and that they are the longest living organisms on earth? In the beginning, in the middle and at the end of God’s Word, we find trees.

The first time a tree is mentioned is in Genesis 5:11,“Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them;’ and it was so.” Figuratively, a righteous man is compared to a tree in Psalm 1:3: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” And in the final book of the Bible, we read, ^“And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life* and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll” (Revelation 22:19). And we must not fail to acknowledge the wooden cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified—His death and resurrection being the foundation for the Christian faith. Some believe the cross He died on was made from the dogwood tree. Others believe it was made from three different types of wood: cedar, pine and cypress. Which ever it was, it is rather sobering to know that our salvation is intimately connected to the existence of trees.

As to our Blue Spruce? When it was relocated to our trailer site at MBC , it was renamed Bradley’s Tree. It has become a haven for birds: robins nesting in its branches, chickadees fluttering in and out as they crack sunflower shells, flighty nuthatches creeping upside down on the trunk, yellow finches clustering together as a family, all sharing the tree with squirrels and chipmunks as they race up and down the trunk.

Bradley’s Tree is now thirty-six years old and is as healthy, perhaps healthier than the day it was taken from a small, plastic bag. It is a testimony to the faith of a young boy who believed in a big future for a tiny insignificant sapling.

The one who trusts in the Lord
“..is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Jeremiah 17:8

*Jesus is the tree of life  (Rev 2:7), the bread of life (John 6:35), the water of life, (John 14:6) the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), and the Word of life (Phil. 2:16).

P.S. For an interesting read, check out The Story of the Bible, Told by Trees by Glenn Paauw.