Faith

“ Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Heb 11:1”

Last spring we planted six trees. I’ve mentioned the fruit trees a couple of times – two peach and two apple. We also have a maple that was a gift from a friend. Then we have a walnut. The walnut was bought at the same time as the fruit trees. We planted them all last February, and as the winter had been very mild and spring seemed to come early, the trees all quickly flourished. But in March we had a late, hard freeze. The maple tree, peach trees and one of the apple trees seemed to survive with little damage, but the other apple and the walnut were another story. The apple began to die, and we had to trim back many of its branches to save the tree. The walnut also showed signs of having problems. The leaves began to droop, and then they turned black. By the time other trees began losing their leaves for the fall, the walnut tree’s leaves were dead and hanging, just waiting for a good wind to blow them away.

We honestly had no idea whether or not the tree was alive. All we knew to do was wait until spring to see if the tree bloomed again. This year we had a colder winter than we’d had in a long time. Spring was later than it has been in recent years, with a heavy snow falling in early March. But by April trees were beginning to bloom. The maple tree, peach trees and hardy apple tree began to leaf. Then we even saw young peaches begin to grow on our one-year-old peach trees! Even the less healthy apple tree began to leaf and show signs of great life from top to bottom. But from the walnut there was nothing. It remained as it was – barely a stick protruding up from the ground. As warm weather set in, my husband tested the trunk to see if it was still pliable. It was. He cut a small tip off of one of the two branches, and saw that there was still green inside. Maybe it would grow! Still, though, there was nothing. No growth, no leaves, no change. April faded away and May arrived, and still nothing.

We could not see what was going on inside that tree. For all we knew, it was dead or dying. For all we knew, it would just remain a stick jutting out of the ground. We had no external evidence of growth. But, we had hope. We believed that it was still alive. We had no external evidence other than the continued pliability of the tiny trunk. But we had faith.

Just the other day I was looking out the window at the dreary rain and my eyes landed on that tiny tree. Something caught my eye – something that didn’t look like grass. It looked more like leaf on the top of the trunk! Could it be? I called my husband to the window and he looked. Yes! There was a leaf! The next day we went out into the yard to examine the little tree. Sure enough, right on the tip of the only surviving branch was a small bundle of leaves. But that was not all! Below the bundle of leaves, all along the branch, were smaller buds! And, close to the base of the tree, a brand new branch was beginning to grow! Our tree was truly alive!

Now the application is pretty obvious. For the explosion of leaf growth to have occurred practically overnight, there had to have been growth going on inside that tree for a while. It wasn’t just that all of the sudden the tree came alive. No, rather there was preparation and growth that was occurring beyond what we could see.

In my family right now nothing seems to be happening. We have needs approaching that we can do nothing about other than place them in our loving Father’s hands. But, it seems like He’s silent and still, doing nothing. If we read Hebrews 11:1, though, we can know that is not true. We can know that He’s working. We have faith. We trust Him. He has promised to provide all our needs, and He’s doing it! We can’t see what He’s doing, but He’s still doing it! We are hoping for provision of needs – faith is our assurance of that. We can’t see our future, but we know that we have one – faith is that conviction. Just like we could not see what was going on inside that tree, so we can’t see what’s going on to prepare our future and our provision. One day it will all come to the surface. One day it will all be visible, just like those walnut leaves. And when it is visible, it won’t just be a little green showing here and there – it will be a nice big clump of leaves with signs of other growth all along our path. We will suddenly have sight to prove our faith. But, until then we have that faith – knowing that it’s coming, and watching daily to see the outward signs.