The Oak inside the Acorn

“Mother Oak hugged Little Acorn in her strong branches. ‘Within you is a great oak, Little Acorn. Just be the tree God made you to be.'” So begins the beautiful children’s book by Max Lucado, The Oak Inside the Acorn. It is the tale of a tiny acorn who wonders what he was made to do. When he falls off of his mother’s branch and eventually lands in the soft dirt of an orange grove, he wonders why he can not make bright orange fruit like the other trees. Later, when he is transplanted into the farmer’s yard, he wonders why he is not producing bright pink blooms like the flowers near the house. But his mother’s words, spoken surely and often when he hung on her sturdy branch echo softly through his winter sleep: “Within you is a great oak, Little Acorn. Just be the tree God made you to be.”

Eventually, Little Oak became Big Oak. “But he still wondered what what he was supposed to do. He couldn’t grow oranges or flowers. He just grew bigger. And he didn’t know why.” Then, one spring as Big Oak was rousing from his long winter’s nap, a young farmer brought two ropes and tied them to one of his strong branches. Close by, a little girl watched… By the time the sun had reached its peak, Little Girl had learned to swing. And Big Oak finally knew what he had been made to do.

 “When she swung, he stood strong. When her daddy built her a tree house in Big Oak’s branches, Big Oak gladly held it. When Little Girl stretched out on the grass to watch the clouds float, Big Oak shaded her. She played in his branches, climbed his trunk, rested in his shadow, and together they grew.

Each year both taller.
Each year both stronger…
And at last Big Oak knew he had become the tree God made him to be.”

So goes the sweet story of a tiny acorn and a big Mommy tree who prepares her little progeny to embrace with expectation the life God has created especially for him.  It is a story that reminds this mommy that buried inside of my own “little acorns” are unique and mighty purposes. When I remember that Almighty God has tucked a Kingdom plan into my 20-month old, a divine calling into my three-year-old, an anointed life into my six-year-old, holy passions into my ten-year-old, and unique gifts into my twelve-year old, I am awed. Humbled. Pulled to my knees in prayer. Oh, that my children- that your children-would become exactly who God has made them to be, oaks of righteousness whose purposeful lives point unashamedly to their Maker.

The Overflow:  “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor” -Isaiah 61:3b