The Tree

[Jesus] bore our sins in His own body on the tree… (1 Peter 2:24). The corkscrew willow tree stood vigil over our backyard for more than 20 years. It shaded all four of our children as they played in the yard, and it provided shelter for the neighborhood squirrels. But when springtime came and the tree didn’t awake from its winter slumber, it was time to bring it down. Every day for a week I worked on that tree. First to fell it and then to chop two decades of growth into manageable pieces. It gave me a lot of time to think about trees. I thought about the first tree — the one on which hung the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve just couldn’t resist (Genesis 3:6). God used that tree to test their loyalty and trust. Then there’s the tree in Psalm 1 that reminds us of the…