I was mowing at the parsonage and out by the northwest corner is a pine tree. It is that time of the year when it starts doing its thing… dropping needles and pine cones. I have a love/hate relationship with pine trees. It reminded me of an article I wrote when I was in southwest Arkansas. Pine trees are everywhere down there. Some of the lumber companies have acre upon acre of them growing and they harvest them periodically.

One Sunday night my message was taking the time to enjoy the things in God’s creation. Things like the flowers, rainbows, northern lights, trees, newborn babies, sunsets and fall leaves. We just get so busy that we forget to slow down and enjoy what God has put around us.

After the service, one of the ladies came up and shared how much she enjoyed the message. She replied that she had never thought about all the things around her that had the beauty within them and was missing them. We talked about trees specifically as fall was upon us and leaves were changing colors.

I then told her that I thought that the pine tree was the exception to this. Couldn’t really prove it, but I was pretty sure the pine tree was in the Garden of Eden that grew the forbidden fruit. “What? Are you serious?” she exclaimed. “Well, yes ma’am I am,” was my reply.

I then explained that the notion was not based on scientific study by any agency, college or group, but on the fact that the previous day I had raked pine needles for about an hour and a half and made only a dent in what still needed to be raked. “Pine cones, as Yule Gibbons taught, had many edible parts,” I shared with her. This deduction led me to believe that at one time the pine cone was probably a luscious fruit and highly edible as well as desirable! We know that Genesis tells us that the tree that led to sin was “good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). We know, also, that it was good looking enough to make the man want to eat it!

So, I figured that with these facts in mind, and further knowing man was punished and the serpent as well, so would the tree, too. Man works by the sweat of his brow, woman has pain in childbirth, her desire will be for her husband and the serpent crawls on his belly with enmity between it and man (Gen. 3:14-19). The pine tree should have its punishment as well.

Think about it, the pine tree has those irritating needles that fall all year long. You can’t mulch them, but, you can burn them (only after you spend an insurmountable time raking them, finding an area safe to set fire and hopefully not burn down half the countryside because there are needles everywhere…4 feet deep!).

Then there is the constant falling of the limbs. The pine tree is a tree that is self-pruning. Problem is, you do not know which limb is going to fall or when! Along with the limbs falling comes the pine cones. They fall hitting cars, roofs, and unsuspecting pets and bystanders. Hit one with the lawnmower and you have a potential projectile that could be used as a weapon of war on an unsuspecting enemy!

Now, spring brings additional hazards. The first is the green film, or rather fog, that comes with the pollenization of spring! I have been driving and seen, literally, clouds of the green haze blowing across the countryside. It goes everywhere, the roofs of houses, tops of cars, on driveways, roads, in our windows and houses, on our clothes, unguarded pets, and if no moisture is available, it clings to grass, shrubs and hedges, so when bumped it becomes the attack of the green pollen monster.

I question how a tree so beautiful in the spring of the year with its blossoms shaped as a cross could be so much trouble?

The point to this hypothesis (yes, there is a point) is that we are God’s creation…created in His image. We are beautiful and wonderfully made, made for good works and to bring God glory. As a pine tree towers to lofty heights overlooking all of God’s creation, we do the same. We are the only one of God’s creation to have a soul. Yet, we so resemble the pine tree. We are beautiful for a short season and then, it seems, that all we do the rest of the time is make a mess. We drop our needles, cones, limbs and pollen that causes other to contend with, clean up or be miserable when we breathe it…coughing, sneezing and wheezing.

Which are you? Do we bring God glory? Are we demonstrating His beauty by how we live, talk and look? Or, are we just making a mess that someone else has to clean up? Are we filling the air with fog that causes people to run for cover, shutting you out ,and the elements produced as a result of the lives we live?

No, I really don’t believe the pine tree was the tree in the Garden and the pine cone was the forbidden fruit, but I do believe it makes for a good illustration of how we are living our lives for God. I hope you will take few minutes and think and look at our lives and see if you have any pine needles or cones at your feet.

Bro. Tim (Matt. 5:16)

Pastor Tim Perkins