Strength

What is strength made up of? A tree does not DO anything it is persistently BEING. How many years ago did some seed send it's tiny root deep into the earth to stake it's claim? Appearances are the tree never moves, even the growing is a miniscule thing, taken for granted season after season. The tree is committed to it's own nature, confined to it's own business. Today at church, they talked about the faith of a mustard seed which would never become anything BUT a mustard plant. Here we see the faith, the strength of an oak seed, becoming only oak, determined beyond man's clever inventions to be an oak tree. It did not rail against the sticky wet pavement when it was laid, it did not object, protest or complain. The oak stuck to it's own flexible and growing mission without regard to any other thing, and look! I've an anonymous quote that flashes across my screen when my mind (or body) wander too far away... "Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's little nut that held it's ground." So, as the year ends and I project forward into the new one beginning, help me remember my own nature, my own business and instead of busily "doing" let me just "be" a little nut that holds its ground.