Grow Where You Are Planted

I love how nature becomes a ready metaphor to teach such amazing lessons!  Alma testified that

all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

Kurt Johnson paints a picture-perfect metaphor of one of my favorite images.

Grow Where You Are Planted

Have you ever seen a tree growing out of an odd place, like a crack in a rock on the side of a mountain, and wondered how it grew there?

We can take the following lesson from such a tree: grow where you are planted.

I would guess that trees prefer being planted in rich soil with just the right amount of sunlight, shelter, and water. But instead, the winds carried this seed to a foreboding, craggy place. Despite hard conditions, it grew. It did not have the choice of where it was planted, but it did the best it could with the situation it was placed in. Way to go resilient little tree!

Right now, we find ourselves planted in an unprecedented, unsettled, uneasy time. We don’t know the end from the beginning, but God does. He would have us act as agents unto ourselves seeking opportunities to grow and bear fruit, even when we may feel inclined to shrink, play the victim card, and wither away.

Let that little tree growing from such an unusual site serve as an example to us of growing where we are planted.

As the tree grew, it wrapped its roots around and clung to the rock from which it was planted for strength and for its anchor, bracing it against the howling wind.

The scriptures compare the Savior to a rock. Let’s cling to Him for strength. He can be our anchor. And our greatest growth will come because of Him!