Trees of Faith

written by Kyle Gassaway

Before I explain what I’m thinking I want to give full credit to my buddy Graham Monroe for this image he received in his mind.  Graham and I are both very visual people, so we see life and all its complexities through visuals and symbols.  I compare it to the movie, “Inception”, where people’s minds are given thoughts by others that change how they would act.  It’s a fascinating concept and I believe that God does this when He speaks through His Holy Spirit to His people.  I can’t explain fully how it works, but when God gave me His spirit I remember this visual inception becoming a new experience in my life.  I could tell more about my experiences, but now I want to tell about the Tree of Faith.  

So there is this tree growing in the middle of a room.  Water is falling from the ceiling onto the leaves, then the branches and down to the ground.  The tree should be growing with all this water and nutrients it is receiving from above yet it's not.  The reason for this is apparent when one sees the ground it is growing from.  There are these large holes in the dirt all around the base of the tree that are capturing the water that was meant for the roots of the tree.  The tree is beginning to wither, because its nutrients are being drawn away by these pits in the mud.  

Then comes the realization that the tree is the faith and life of the Christian, and the holes that surround it are the lies we believe about ourselves and the parts of ourselves that doubt God.   You see, God has continued to rain down on us blessing after blessing every day, yet these holes are not allowing us to receive in thankfulness and faith what God wants us to receive.  Our souls begin to whither the longer we can’t see the doubts and lies that often times are so subtle and so built into ourselves that they are even subconscious.  So what is a tree like you and I to do, which is being starved of faith and love?  

The solid ground that must be used to cover these holes is the very promises of the Lord, our God.  His truth and His Word is the only weapons we have against the lies that have stolen from us for all our lives.  The lies that have remained under the surface in hidden places that only God can see.  The doubts that persist in deep parts of us can only be healed by faith and truth.  In Mark 9:24, a man whose son needs to be healed by Jesus of an evil Spirit, is told by Jesus that all he needs to do is believe and his son will be healed.  The man in a desperate appeal that resonates in the corridors of my soul exclaims,  “I believe, help my unbelief!”   I feel my soul crying out these very words when I see the holes in my life.  I try to fill them myself, but they always seem to open wide again and drain me.  I have come to the point like many others in the family of faith that can no longer live in futility by covering them by our own means.  

God is the great Healer and Savior of us trees and He has set forth His spirit and His Word to be the applier of the healing.  Let us, as people of faith, cling to the promises that God has made to us in Christ and pray for the unbelief to become like a living spring in our hearts.  This is the final part of the image, that these holes that once stole the water from our roots become springs of water that feed us when the promises of God sink down deep enough to purge our unbelief and fill us from the inside-out.