After depositing my Christmas tree at the tree collection site, I was struck by the mountain of trees that were piled up there.

They were still green, smelled great and actually looked like a big wall of robust trees laid on their sides. They’d all brought joy and happiness in each of the homes they’d been set up in. They’d all presided royally as the center piece of each house. some for more than a month, most for at least two weeks. Even here, they maintained their sense of life, vibrancy and expectation. The thing that gave an exclamation point to it all was the permeating smell… that alone, as strong as it was, simply exuded life!

But, these were dying trees. They’d seen their glory and it was gone. Within days they would become mulch. Even though they appeared to be alive, there were no roots. They weren’t just dying, they were dead.

It breaks my heart that so many of us are living that way. Shells of what could be, illusions of what never was, illusive dreams of impossibility. Sadder yet is that most of us don’t even see it; the Deceiver has snatched away our hope, our faith and our dreams, leaving us with the pitiful remainder of the lives that others had led, telling us that we are to be content with that history.

I can’t help but think of this sonnet:

Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend, make the mountains shudder at your presence…To shock your enemies into facing you, make the nations shake in their boots!…Since before time began no one has ever imagined, No ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who happily do what is right, who keep a good memory of the way you work.

That should be the undergirding of who we are, folks who are waiting for Him. Both the expectation and the certainty of a life covered by the divine whisks away any imagery of a Christmas tree graveyard. We are the eternal tree, full of splendor, always robust, with roots that go deep.

Yeah, I like that image much better…