Acorns

I think about acorns every fall when they start raining from the trees.  Sometimes I pick one up in sheer wonder, "How does this end up being a giant oak tree?"  We study science and see a million acorns, and we shrug our shoulders, and we lose our wonder, but SERIOUSLY, those little acorns can become oak trees.  Not all acorns do.  In fact, most don't, but they are all potential oak trees and that is crazy to contemplate.

In 2012, a friend of mine believed for the first time that Jesus is truly God and her Savior.  It's an incredible experience to have and almost just as incredible to watch- a person meeting Jesus.  And it's one of those experiences you cannot even imagine what it's like until it happens, and then it's so exciting and even a little scary.  Just imagine (or remember) the God who created the entire universe and all that's within it down to the very last atom becoming real to you and having a relationship with you.  Amazing.  Exciting. Scary.

My friend hesitated in a moment of fear.  She was afraid of what she would need to change in her life, what she would need to give up.  Eventually, those fears gave way to love, but that moment she had stuck with me.

An acorn cannot become an oak tree without shedding its old shell to make room for what's to come.  After all, no way would an oak tree fit in an acorn.  In the same way, we must shed our old self, our dead self in order to make room for the new life.  They cannot coexist.  The old must go.  Jesus offers us freedom from that prison of sin and shame.  And just like the acorn, what we give up is nothing compared to how God will transform us as he makes us more like Jesus, more like the people he created us to be before sin and brokenness stood in the way.

Most acorns do not become trees, but becoming a tree seems like a much greater adventure.



"And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all"
Hebrews 10:10

"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions- it is by grace you have been saved."
Ephesians 2:4-5