Daily Word of Grace # 153 (October 15, 2020)
Several summers ago my daughter Emily and I drove across the desserts of Utah, crossed into Nevada and visited the often overlooked Great Basin National Park. This beautiful park includes some of the oldest living trees on the planet, the Bristlecone Pine (pinus longeava), some of which are nearly an astounding 5,000 years old. Ironically, Bristlecone Pines struggle to survive in climates and conditions in which many trees flourish, and instead thrive in harsh climates with very little soil and even less rainfall. Seeing these Bristlecone Pines in person in a grove near the summit of Wheeler Peak was awesome, especially realizing that they have been there since before the incarnation of Our Savior. The grace of God, demonstrated historically and definitively in the death of Jesus Christ on a different tree, the cross—like the Bristlecone Pine—can thrive in the harshest and most forbidding climates and circumstances in our lives. Even if these harsh and forbidding climates and circumstances are due to our own poor choices or sin, God’s grace can still thrive in those specific places, because as Paul wrote, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). Not only that, God’s grace lasts infinitely longer than even Bristlecone Pines—very good news regardless of the climates or circumstances of your life.
Love and Prayers,
Dave