Christmas Trees in August

Each day during my commute, I pass a Christmas tree farm. I hadn't given it much thought until recently because it seems to blend into the landscape. But last week, as I glanced at the trees, I realized how much I relate to them. Do you ever feel as if you haven't reached your full potential? As if you are waiting for something that you have yet to experienced in full, but are certain it exists because you have caught a taste of it in the wind? The feeling has been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember. I'm only speaking in part about the need one has to prove himself to the world. The desire for success, accolades, wealth and power dangle like a carrot in front of most everyone to some extent. But what I'm speaking about runs much deeper.

I wondered, if human feelings could be attributed to a Christmas tree, what it would feel in August. The trees grown on the farm have yet to experience Christmas, but maybe they have a feeling that they are meant for something more. Maybe they have a longing to be adorned...to become more than a simple tree, to experience the event for which they were named. They don't know, like I know, that some day soon, they will realize the moment for which they were grown. Thoughts of Heaven and Christ's return seemed to follow naturally. We have yet to experience in full, the life for which we were purchased. Yet each partial experience grows in us a desire for the full. As C.S. Lewis says, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." We talk often about the "already and not yet" philosophy of Christianity. But each day's experiences seem to shrink the percentage of the "already."

Everything is most definitely not alright. I learned that lesson long ago. Life is full of hurt and death, heartache and loss, and every event deepens the chasm between us and hope. But we were bought by blood, and sealed through a Spirit. We were renamed and someday soon, we will be adorned and realize the moment for which we were created.

So we can have hope...even in August.