Planting with Hope

Planting with Hope

On our re-visit to the Pacific Northwest, Jane and I circled down and around to the Olympic rain forest and the hiking trail by the Quinault Lodge. We read the story of its construction back in 1926. The whole structure was framed from June to August of that year. They put a rush on it.

But not everything was rushed. There was a picture of the original structure, brand new, with a bare front yard. The three trees in the picture above were planted four years later, in 1930, or 93 years ago. They now tower above me, and I can only guess how deep and high they go.

What catches my interest is that the people who planted them had no hope of ever seeing them reach this height. They planted in hope, but a hope that they would not personally experience. They did it for others. They did it for the future. It was not for themselves.

There is an interesting story told in Isaiah about the end of Hezekiah’s life. God had delivered him from the horde of Assyrians that were knocking on the door of Jerusalem, and then a terminal disease, from which he was given another fifteen years of life. God answered prayer in both those cases. But when the Babylonians came knocking, Hezekiah opened the storehouse doors and showed them everything. Isaiah then told King Hezekiah that these Babylonians would carry these treasures away to Babylon, along with several of Hezekiah’s sons. Hezekiah’s answer? “Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “For there will be peace and truth in my days” (Isaiah 39:8).

Unlike those who planted the trees, Hezekiah was only concerned with “peace and truth” in his days, during his lifetime. He wasn’t concerned for the future of his sons, nor for the future of the nation over which he reigned.

We plant seeds for the future. We don’t know what is going to grow, or how big, or how tall. Maybe a good number of the seeds will come to nothing at all. But we can be assured that unplanted seeds will certainly produce nothing at all.

We are not growers of trees or birthers of new Christians. We are not builders of Christ’s church. Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Mt 16:18); and as Paul said, some of us plant and some of us water, but it is God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:6-7). May God be pleased to bless our efforts with new believers who are towers/trophies of grace.