There’s a white oak on the hill at my old Clinch Mountain home,
It stands straight and true on that windy spur alone.
And when the cold winds blow, its roots bend and moan,
But when the storm has passed, it straightens up and goes on.
For this article, I ask that you visualize a picture. For those of you who live in eastern Kentucky, this is an image you can see out of your window. Notice the size of a single tree out in your backyard. See how strong and sturdy it stands in the earth. Now, look past the tree into the mountains. Notice the sea of trees past your backyard, across the horizon. This single tree we mentioned before represents us as an individual. And just as we are in society, we are lost in a sea of people who live on this Earth. It’s a little intimidating and depressing to think how small we are as a person. You can read in scripture how weak and frail we as humans are, and how strong and able God is. There’s a theory that the culture and lifestyle that we as humans partake are not from a structured entity, but rather from growing trends in our time. As soon as you graduate from high school, you go to college. When you get married, you leave your family and become one with your spouse. We didn’t follow these rules because we had an active role in the situation. Rather, we go with the flow of our culture. We are like the tree blowing in the wind, forcing our branches to bend this and that direction.
Let me ask you to visualize another picture. At night, look up at the sky. Notice the moon reflecting from the sun’s light. Note that the moon is surrounded by thousands of stars which are light-years away. The purpose of this article is to show you how weak and frail we are as human beings. What are we to do? The key here is to not wish that bad things wouldn’t happen. In fact, bad things will happen. But we are to ask God in our “bending of the wind” that God use us to shape the world. Revelation 3:8 involves Jesus telling us directly that we have little strength.
With that said, let me give another bit of scripture. We are small and weak, but be confident in what is said in Revelation 2:17. It involves the time in which we are past this Earthly world and are in heaven. Christ says He will give us a white stone with a written name on it, in which only Him and us know of it. This shows the intimacy of Christ. We are in-fact small and frail. But it is realizing our weakness that we become strong through Christ. We might be forced to bend in the wind, but Christ is the maker of the wind. Let us be at peace.
The troubles of this life sometimes get me down,
When I look for my friends, they’re not always around.
But the good Lord says, “Son, get up and do my will,
And always remember that old white oak on the hill.”