Haiku: Winter folds a tree- into a counterfeit death – Gray, boney, lifeless.

As I sit on the back porch, high in the Ozark mountains looking down into the valley, I welcome the cool morning breeze. The rolling mountains covered in deciduous trees are in full bloom. Billowing white clouds stationery in the pale blue sky, show hints of rain in the underbelly. Tree limbs sway in the wind, leaves rustle ever so briefly and stop. A red-headed woodpecker sails pass without stretched wings maneuvering the air currents with ease. With slight turns between the trees, he disappears. Birds sing their early morning songs, hidden from sight. Shaded spots cover the mountainside from the clouds above offering its cool shade as the day heats. Life plays and dances in the wind, life grows in the sunlight’s warmth and exists as created.

But standing amid this background of life is a giant dead stick-gray, boney and lifeless. It stands in contrast to its surrounding. Haggard branches extend outward out of place in the middle of summer encompassed by life. Its lifeless form yearns for the dead of winter, for the facade of a counterfeit death, so to fit in.

So, don’t let your Christian life be a giant dead stick, comfortable with your Christianity in the dead of winter. Dig your roots deep, grow in knowledge and wisdom, and overflow with gratitude.

Jeremiah 17: 7-9 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green. And will not be anxious in a year of draught nor cease to yield fruit. The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? I, the Lord search the heart and I test the mind…