Our Trees

The Christian symbol of faith is the crucifix that gloriously becomes an empty cross. Christians tend to avoid this first part to our detriment, because we can not get to empty crosses without hanging on them. A Christian education, with letters behind a name, does not necessary make a disciple. However, it does assist in a framework where sacrifice, experience and divine relationship can be identified with.

God seems to meet His disciples, in their experience, where we tend to listen; in pain. In one of my favorite films, The Princess Bride a statement is made, “life is pain; anyone telling you any different is trying to sell you something.” This is where our Christian experienced rubber tires meet the hot concrete of life. It is what we do with what Christ did for us, and what we do in walking through our own crucifixion that reveals what we truly believe. There are no short cuts to heaven; it has to flow through, “Your Will Be Done.”

In saying the Lord’s Prayer, we are challenged to believe it. When a Christian sees Christ’s crucifixion there is no way to go but through it or run from it. It is in His pain that we have strength for ours, because He has shown us that only through His wounds does our heaven await. When hanging on a tree it becomes ours. It might not have been chosen, but now we have been nailed to it. Sometimes going through it is the answer, because it is the only choice we have. Christians sometimes only can have faith on our tree, because God did on His.