Planting a Forest
I finially finished reading “Sacred Parenting” by Gary Thomas last night. I think I started it over a month ago. I guess that’s just how things go when there’s a baby in the picture. A passage I read a week or so ago still sticks in my mind. The context is the author talking about being successful:
“I sensed God telling me I had a choice to make. I could devote myself to becoming a strong and attractive tree that others would admire — “Look at those roots!” “Wow, look at all that fruit!” — Or I could focus on planting a forest (that is, investing in others). God made it very clear to me what He would have me choose. And so I spend my days planting a forest. It feels very freeing to accept your insignficance…In God’s delightful irony, embracing your temporal insignificance leads to the greatest eternal significance.”
I really like that analogy of planting a forest. Whether it’s investing my time in raising and discipling Madeline and other children God may bless us with in the future, or spending time with women in the Rock, or pouring hours into administrative projects that hopefully make things run more smoothly for the Rock as a whole, I like thinking of it as a forest that can spread beyond where I can reach and that can outlast me and reach a new generation. While I think pride would push almost all of us in our flesh to want to be that one big, beautiful tree…a whole forest can produce so much more wood or shade or fruit.
There’s lots of good stuff in this book. I would highly reccommend it to anyone who has kids or anyone who is thinking about having them. Like “Sacred Marriage,” it’s a lot more about how God can use children to make you more mature than it is about how to be a good parent. But if you are at all prone to crying, don’t read chapter 13 in a public place like I did last night. I really had to fight back the tears as I read that chapter (entitled “leaving”) while sitting in Stomping Grounds.
I read one of my favorite verses in the One-Year Bible today (It’s actually yesterday’s reading, but since I didn’t read in the one-year yesterday I thought I would read both sections): “God is our refuge and our strength, and ever present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1). Amen to that! I need to meditate on that verse more often.