Every year I round up my acorns. Usually, I gather them from under large oak trees I admire, other years I bum them off my oak-tree loving friend, Jeff, and sometimes my dad brings them to me already sprouted in black plastic containers. Then, acorns in my pockets, or sprouted, or whatever, I walk out into our field, along the edge of our walnut orchard, and scrape holes. There I tuck the acorns into the wet, dark dirt about an inch deep, and pray they grow because I really want to line our land with oak trees.

Ten years of this, and I have about six oak trees twice as tall as me now. Out of the hundreds of acorns I’ve planted, six trees have thrived. Maybe a half-dozen more are a foot tall right now, struggling to make it over the deer hump. Because the deer come in when the trees are small and rip them right out of the ground. Or the gophers get the roots. Or one of the workers sprays the weeds in the orchard and sprays my little trees along the edges, too, which does them in.

Some years, I don’t even get a single acorn to grow. It can be so discouraging. There are years I just want to quit planting acorns altogether. Just give up on growing oak trees. But autumn rolls around all crisp and bright with leaves turning red and yellow and brown as I walk through a park with acorns on the ground, or a school with acorns on the ground, or a churchyard with acorns on the ground, and I can’t help myself. I pick up the seeds of the great, old trees and tuck them into my pockets the way I tuck hope into my heart.

 

Growing an oak tree isn’t easy. I’ve discovered this through years of experience. In every hole I plant at least three acorns, usually only one out of the three grows. Out of that one that grows, maybe one a year survives out of all the acorns planted that season. This one that survives rarely makes it two years. Three years is kind of a miracle. After four years, the oak has a pretty good chance of growing taller than me.

Growing oak trees reminds me of growing Christians. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like the farmer who planted good seed in his field and all the bad things that happened to the good seed and only some seed survived and grew and produced other seeds.

Matthew 13:22-23 says, “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

I’m so glad Jesus keeps planting year in and year out on this earth. That every season, every month, every minute the Lord plants his truth in human hearts. God never gives up, never gives in, and never stops planting and we shouldn’t, either. God’s truth may be hard to grow in today’s world, but that doesn’t mean we should quit because it’s hard. Already some of my oak trees are producing shade on hot days. Producing branches for birds to build their nests. Producing acorns to grow more oaks. Yes, it was hard getting them to grow, but I love gathering acorns in the fall, and planting acorns come winter, and walking out into our orchard in the springtime to check on my little oak trees along the edge.

And yes, I know being a Christian isn’t easy. And getting others to come to Christ isn’t easy. And living day in and day out swimming up stream in a world where most folks are swimming down is not easy. But a hundred years from now this is going to matter. Really, truly matter. Because we are eternal beings and some of the people I share the truth with today will be in heaven in a hundred years. And in a hundred years, by the grace of God, there are going to be big beautiful oak trees on our land because I persevered in planting them there.