Walking Jack around the neighborhood in September can lead to goose eggs and noggin knocks. It’s acorn time.
Local squirrels are working high in the oak trees, chewing away the shells of acorns and collecting the nut-meats for wintertime. Chipmunks living under our front steps are doing the same. With oak trees everywhere, there’s plenty for all.
When we moved here full time last year, the sound of acorns banging on roofs, cars and wooden decks took us off guard, mimicking gun shots. If we looked up, which was risky, a squirrel would inevitably be busy chomping overhead, causing clusters of acorns to fall.
I’ve seen Little Red (“Taught by a Squirrel” April 13) taking advantage of this year’s abundance. But my next door neighbor tells me getting bonked in the head is enough to make you wear a football helmet outdoors. Walking the roads can be perilous, too, with marble-like acorns carpeting the way.
But acorn season cannot be stopped. God is busy sowing seeds. I love his well-established, logical laws of sowing… and reaping. They apply to oak trees, but they also apply to us.
Erwin Lutzer summarized them well in a memorable sermon years ago: Law #1, we’ll always reap what we sow; Law #2, we’ll always reap in a different season than we sow; Law #3, we’ll always reap more than we sow.
Oak trees produce acorns, which of course produce more oak trees, not maples or elms (Law #1). But acorns don’t exist in the spring. It takes nearly half a year before they’re ready (Law #2). The big oak trees behind our cottage reach above fifty feet, but each had its beginning in one humble acorn. Today thousands of acorns are falling to the ground from the oak trees in only one yard (Law #3).
It’s easy to apply these three laws to the simple acorn, and we nod with understanding. Applying them to ourselves, however, is another story. For example, Law #1 says if we tell a lie, eventually we’ll be deceived ourselves. Law #2 tells us lying probably won’t catch up with us until later, but Law #3 says that when it does, our lives will be permeated with deception, cheating and dishonesty.
Most of us are sure beyond doubt we’ll be the exception to every rule, believing if we take shortcuts around God’s laws, it won’t affect us. But whatever he says is going to happen, will happen.
Sometimes we plow ahead with our own ideas, unaware we’re diverting from God’s wisdom and laws. It isn’t that we’re rebelling. We just don’t recognize our error in the offing. Unfortunately, the biblical laws of sowing and reaping still apply. As lawyers are fond of saying, “Ignorance is no excuse,” and as moms say, “You’ll have to suffer the natural consequences.” I think those statements both must have originated with God.
Too bad we don’t usually learn just by reading what the Lord says. Sometimes he has to hit us over the head with it, just like an acorn knocks us in the noggin. But a few goose bumps are worth it to learn what we need to know.
“All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.” (Psalm 119:160)
