A surprising application!
Image from Leilani Strong Smith
Leilani Strong Smith, good friend, fellow teacher, author and artist, provides the story today!
To walk among the giant redwoods feels sacred: Shafts of sunlight shift slowly as they take their place in this natural cathedral. Despite their beauty and height, redwood trees cannot make all the food they need. They need the help of mushrooms, lichens, and other organisms to supply them the remainder of the food they need. Did you know that over 200 kinds of organisms help them thrive?
Today’s photo shows a rare, albino redwood in northern California. Albino trees have no chlorophyll. Thus, they cannot make any food for themselves. How did it come to be, and how does it live? Redwood trees share interconnected roots which very rarely sprout an albino tree. The albinos are parasites on the normal redwood trees around them: they steal much needed sugars from the healthy trees in order to live.
I saw this albino redwood tree on a friend’s property. It reminded me of the Body of Christ: like the redwood roots we are all connected by Jesus, yet we possess differences in temperament and ministries. Each believer has a unique identity in Him, and we are interconnected. Paul writes: “For just as the body is one…and all the members of the body—though many—are one body...God has placed each of the members in the body just as he decided. If they were all the same member, where would the body be?” 1 Cor. 12:12,18-19 Application: Walk in boldness for who He made you to be!
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I love Leilani’s link between redwoods and the body of Christ. Do we share that needed level of connection? God desires that, he created us to be different yet bonded by our roots in God and to one another. However, too many of us, even who attend church live, as Lone Ranger followers. The stone anchored comes later, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). If we have little significant and intentional spiritual connections to others, our actions proclaim we don’t need them. God says so.
With that connection, we nourish others in what they can’t provide for themselves, and they nourish us in what we can’t provide for ourselves. Without it, we both experience spiritual malnutrition. But we face a deeper consequence: do we want to be a participating and productive part of Jesus’ body, or to be a spiritual parasite, sucking up life from others, maybe even from God, without a willingness to give to others and God?
Leilani titled this “Dare to be Yourself.” God designed you to connect deeply. That is your true self. Consider yourself dared.
Kick Starting the Application
Are you an albino redwood, or a healthy red one? How often do you connect to other members of Jesus’ body: rarely, casually, or consistently? How deep are those connections: conversational, significant sharing, or involvement in life? Do you intentionally impact others spiritually? Do you need to change? Will you?