GROWING STRAIGHT UP

Here's something I wrote back in 2005, unedited:

I was parked at someone's house the other night and saw a young tree (a sapling?) in their yard.  I saw that the slender, delicate trunk of the tree was being gently pulled by strings tied to stakes on both the right and left sides.  This is obviously done to cause the tree to grow up straight and not crooked.

I got to thinking about this, and realized that when you really think about it with a simple mind, the whole concept behind this is pretty odd.  In order to grow a tree straight and tall, you must pull it to the right and left?  Of course it makes sense, but it just sounds weird.

I think many times our lives reflect these young trees that are being pulled on both sides.  The Gardener surely does this to us, as we are yet young saplings that have a ways to go before we become grand trees.  Even the slightest winds in this world will cause us to tilt to one side, but He will not have it so.  So, with the strings of hardships, joys, comforts, peace, friends, devastation, heartbreak, and loneliness, and stakes planted firmly in grace, love, and mercy, He pulls us from all sides to ensure that we grow straight up and tall, allowing our roots to creep deeper and grow more firmly.

So, if any of us are experiencing pain and sorrow in our hearts, it is because we are in need of those in order to grow up straight up towards heaven.  If any of us are experiencing a time of great happiness and pleasure, it is because we are in need of those in order to grow straight up towards heaven.  These things are done to us because our Gardener cannot help but to only allow us to grow straight upwards.  He does not desire for us to grow in wayward, tilted spurts that would make for a longer and more delayed path to the sky.  The straighter we grow, the faster and more directly we head towards home.  We all want to go home as soon as possible, and when the Gardener seems to take us off that straight and narrow path with delays and obstacles, we must be patient and understand that it may not be as it first appears.  He may, in fact, be doing exactly what we want and need Him to do.

We may not understand it now, but in the end, when we become like the cedars of Lebanon, when our trunks become thick and strong and our branches reach out in glorious fruition, all to the pleasure of our Gardener, we will understand it fully.