Author: Tim Challies

We stood together on the crest of a hill, a gentle breeze rustling the meadow around our feet. The fields ran gently downward until they met a creek that gurgled happily in its course. A few years prior, an acorn had somehow made its way to the highest point of this hill, carelessly dropped there by a bird. Rains had germinated it, then roots had formed and pushed down into the soil. Soon a stem grew upward, then branches emerged, and then a few tender leaves. It was now an oak tree in miniature that rose just inches higher than the grasses around. He gestured toward that tree and said, “When God plants an acorn, he means an oak.” When God’s providence arranges for an acorn to come to rest on the crest of a hill, he means for it to burst into life and become a mighty tree. Within that half-ounce acorn lies the potential of a 30-ton oak. Given time and natural processes, it will become mature and mighty. When God plants an acorn, he means an oak. When God plants a seed, he means for it to spring up to a harvest of a hundredfold. It is always God’s way that what appears to be little is meant to become much, that what appears to be weak is meant to become strong, that what appears to be doubtful is meant to prove his power. For it is, indeed, his power that works to multiply, his power that works to make such growth…See AlsoA La Carte (July 13)What a Wonder Is a Human Being!The Parable of the Acorn