Buffeted by Life

“You have need of endurance…” Hebrews 10:36

Last summer, I was vacationing on the Northern California coast, one of my favorite places. I love everything about it except, to be honest, the fog. I especially love to sit on that wild shore of warm rocks, listening to waves and gulls, feeling the wind on my face, smelling the freshness of redwoods and ocean spray, and examining the beautiful driftwood and kelp that has washed ashore. (OK, I admit Iʼm not fond of the little sand fleas, either.) I dig my hands into the smooth rocks over and over, looking for agates or specially colored stones.

What I love most, though, is the trees. Tall, straight redwoods, growing close together and seeming to reach for God. I always wonder, why do they grow straight up? We canʼt say it is because of the sunʼs pull on them, for the sun is only straight overhead for a few moments each day, and the rest of the day it is off to one side or the other. I suppose a scientist could explain it to me, but I’m sticking with reaching for God.

Other trees along the coast are what are usually called “the woods”—all types and sizes and shapes of leaves and trunk and bark. Many leaves change color in the fall. Some of the trees bear flowers in the summer.

As majestic as the redwoods are, and as varied and colorful as the woods, no tree catches my eye like the ones right along the hillsides surrounding the beaches. These trees often are severely bent away from the ocean winds, bearing testimony to a long life of constant buffeting. How do they continue to stand? They seem to grow almost parallel to the ground. Their trunks and branches permanently lean, and their shape appears to be flat on top. They always remind me of a hunting dog that has located his prey, with his nose straight out front, tail straight out back.

These are the strongest trees. Twisted, gnarled, they have been shaped by the life they have lived. Their roots are so deep that you never see one knocked over. With the redwoods, big as they are, you often see one that has fallen, lying flat on the ground, roots sticking out like an umbrella at their feet. The bent-over coastal trees, underside branches touching the ground, and with no other trees to hold them up, stand strong.

We all know people whose lives parallel these trees. People who appear to stand tall and strong, but fall more easily than those who have lived lives buffeted by trials, by what they are planted beside, by what they are forced to endure day by day.

Lord, grant that we may stand firm, even if we are bent and crooked. Build strength and endurance in us; cause our roots to be deeply planted in You. In Jesusʼ Name, Amen.