Thunk! The splitting maul’s edge slammed into the end of the log, straining to split the grain. I looked down in disgust as the edge penetrated a measly quarter-inch. My older daughter’s boyfriend and I had been splitting wood steadily for the last half hour and making slow progress of it. Sometimes the edge of the maul would simply bounce off the end grain, not penetrating at all. Sometimes a sledgehammer-pounded wedge would get stuck in the twisted wood fibers swirling around a limb.
I stopped for a minute to catch my breath. I reflected on the fact that we were doing something so abnormal to this tree. Something far from its intended purpose.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. Genesis 1:11 NIV
I looked around at the woods around me. Literally hundreds of trees jutting up into the sky, their thousands and millions of huge limbs, branches and tiny twigs ending in buds just starting to burst with flower and leaf. We talked about the powerful structure: a complicated and far-reaching root system, providing not only stable support for the tree above, but gathering huge quantities of nutrients and water and pulling them ever higher into the trunk for life and growth. We looked at the rings of fibers, showing years of life. The needles of the giant pine had gathered energy from the sun, creating new growth and producing life giving oxygen to enrich the atmosphere.
What a wonderful design! And yet, its huge trunk lay on the ground, its decay becoming more and more evident years before it was finally cut down. As we continued to split large chunks, the bark fell off in sheets, revealing insect damage and riddled with holes from insects and woodpeckers alike. Was this God’s intention that third day when He created this beautiful thing? Was this tree meant to die?
Recently, I wrote about Jesus sealing his commitment to die for us in the very moment He breathed the breath of life into Adam. Was Adam meant to fail and die? No. Yet our loving Creator, knowing that we would walk away from Him, foolishly choosing darkness and death, had a plan in place to recreate us, even before He created Adam!
Was the tree we struggled to split created to die? No! Yet it thrived and provided beauty even in the midst of our damaged and polluted world. Even as it died, it gave of itself, supporting insects and birds. Falling to the ground, it provides organic material to replenish the soil, supporting new life from death.
What an intelligent design! What a wonderful Creator! No matter how hard we try to ruin His creation, He still brings life and beauty from death,
whether it is a single pine tree….
…or me.