Advice from a Redwood...

This past week I was so blessed to be treated by my cousins and go out to San Francisco.  We did so many fun things!  They were such sweet hosts.  One of the days  my sister and I took a bus tour across the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods National Park.  This is a park full of protected old-growth coastal Redwood trees.  They really are huge!  One of my favorite things about nature is how it speaks and shows so much of its designer.  We got to listen to one of the park rangers give a talk about the redwood trees and he summed up five pieces of advice we can learn from a Redwood:

1.     Drink lots of Water (they consume hundreds of gallons a day)

2.     Spread your roots wide into the community (their roots are only 10 ft deep but very widespread)

3.     Be thick-skinned (their bark can be 3-12 inches thick which helps them survive forest fires)

4.     Importance of Family (redwoods spread seeds, but most commonly grow out of a parent/grandparent tree root as a ‘family’)

5.     Stand tall  (that one is kinda obvious…)

I was thinking how God designed these trees and they give us some pretty good advice about our own walk with God.  Jesus said that he was the “living water” and that all “who drink the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)  We need to be coming before Jesus every day of our earthly lives to be filled with the water he offers us, just as the redwoods do. 

We need to be in community to spread and anchor ourselves; to be healthy and not fall over.  God designed us for community because it helps protect us, gives us someone to lean on in times of trouble, and allows us to encourage other in their time of need with the advice and resources we have been given. 

We have to be thick-skinned- not in a way that we don’t feel emotions and won’t be affected by anything, but in the sense that we can’t allow what other people say define us and take us away from God’s purposes.  Satan will try and tear down those who are advancing God’s purposes, so we need to be thick-skinned to those attempts to thwart us from spreading God’s love.

I think the importance of family really speaks to having a close group around you to help support you and who know you really well.  Jesus was part of the community, but then he had the 12 disciples around him on a more familial scale.  It is important to have those people who are close to you with whom you can share your struggles and joys.

And stand tall- know who you are and whose you are and shine his light that He might be glorified through how you live for him.  Redwood trees pointing to God…like all things do because He is their creator.