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Stories Home
Growing Squash and Oak Trees?
Friday, May 05 2006 @ 10:40 AM EDT
Contributed by: JoeNamyst
Growing Squash and Oak Trees?
I’ve been coaching soccer for quite a few years. As is the case with most coaches and players, some seasons are diamonds and some are stones. Unfortunately, the last few seasons have been a little rocky.
All my children are very good soccer players. My nephew, Dameon, is probably one of the best goalies I’ve ever seen. If he stays with it, and keeps his head in the game, I imagine there will be a future for him in college and perhaps the pros.
The other day his team took a pretty good beating. He must have had twenty or more saves. But six balls got through. As we were leaving the field he made the comment that he was tired of losing and was considering quitting soccer. I tried to explain to Dameon that each time he makes a save he becomes a better goalie.
President Garfield once said that it takes God a hundred years to make an oak, but it only takes Him two months to make a squash. How true! Think for a moment about the storms, droughts and other plagues that an oak endures as it presses on to maturity. The squash doesn’t have a chance when the winds howl, the skies refuse to produce rain and the worms bore into the stem, but through it all the oak stands firm.
The storms and droughts cause the oak’s roots to go deep into the earth. And so it is with us. If we never encountered any storms or droughts in this life how deeply rooted would we be? How does a goalie gain experience? By making saves, of course. Failures in life are only failures if we fail to get up. Many great people in history had histories of failure. Edison and Lincoln are two people whose accomplishments have touched the masses. Though their early years were marked with defeat, they were never defeated, they were inspired.
Romans 5:3-5 says, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
If we understand that God loves us and the trials in life are intended to strengthen us, not uproot us, it makes them a little easier to bear. I pray as we press on towards the end of our lives on earth we will be able to look in the mirror and see a majestic oak -- not a squash. |
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