Tree trunk in the living room

My father decorated our living room with a tree stump. I was just a kid then, maybe eleven or twelve years old. The perfect age to be intrigued by the idea that we had a tree stump by the fireplace. A clock hung over the fireplace. Fireplace tools stood next to the fireplace. Next to the tool - the stump. Brilliant!

He brought it with him when he got home from work one day. The trunk took up most of the bed of his pickup truck. There he lay when I saw him for the first time. My father hauled it off the truck bed and dropped it on the concrete driveway. What's that, dad? "It's a tree trunk," he replied. There was pride in his voice.

My father worked in the oil fields of West Texas. His job was to make sure the pumps ran smoothly. And obviously that tree stump had hampered his work. To be honest, I don't remember why it bothered him. Maybe he had blocked his way to one of the machines. Perhaps it had jutted out too far over a driveway. Whatever the reason, the tribe had prevented him from doing his job the way he wanted. So he ripped it out of the ground. My father looped one end of a chain around the tree stump and the other end around his trailer hitch. The competition was over before it even began.
But it wasn't enough for him just to rip out the tree stump; he wanted to show it off. Some men hang deer antlers on the wall. Others fill entire rooms with stuffed animals. My father decided to decorate our living room with a tree stump.

Mother was anything but enthusiastic about it. While the two stood in the driveway and had a heated exchange of views, I took a close look at the prey I had killed. The stump was as thick as my boyish hips. The bark had dried up a long time ago and was easy to peel off. Thumb-thick roots hung limp. I've never thought of myself as an expert on "dead trees," but I knew this much: this tree stump was a real beauty.

Over the years I've often thought about why my father used a tree stump as a decoration - mostly because I thought of myself as more of a tree stump. When God found me I was a barren stump with deep roots. I didn't make the landscape of this world any more beautiful. No one could lie down in the shade of my branches. I even got in the way of Father's work. And yet he found a place for me. It took a good tug and a thorough editing, but he brought me from the wasteland to his home and put me on display as his work. “The veil has been taken away from us all so that we may see the glory of the Lord as in a mirror. And the Spirit of the Lord is working in us, so that we become more and more like him, and more and more reflect his glory" (2. Corinthians 3,18 New Life Bible).

And that is exactly the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God will transform you into a heavenly masterpiece and set it up for all to see. Expect to be scrubbed, sanded and painted once or twice or ten times beforehand. But in the end, the result will have been worth all the inconvenience. You will be grateful.

In the end, so was my mother. Remember that heated argument my parents had about the tree stump? My father won. He put the tree stump in the living room - but only after he had cleaned it, painted it and carved it in big letters "Jack and Thelma" and the names of their four children. I can't speak for my siblings, but I was always proud to read my name on the trunk of a family tree.

by Max Lucado

This text was taken from the book "Never stop starting again" by Max Lucado, published by Gerth Medien ©2022 was issued. Max Lucado is the longtime pastor of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas. Used with permission.