By Rev. Pete Hyde
The Oklahoma winter morning broke grey, cold, windy and dreary. The Monday crowd at the hotel was small as we gathered for breakfast. Afternoon flights for the trip home were already being delayed and connections were going to be missed. An hour on the phone with “customer service” finally got a new schedule in place only to have it changed again as those flights were in turn shuffled.
These delays at the hotel put us behind the Tulsa rush hour traffic as we headed out of town for the funeral of a close friend. The rush of traffic and the concrete landscape gave way to less congested roads and more Oklahoma countryside as we headed north to Bartlesville. Billboards and neon signs disappeared leaving a lonely brown and grey landscape framed by a cloudy, cold, Oklahoma winter day. Someone in the car commented on how brown the scenery was in comparison to the Florida evergreens.
I began to take note of the rolling open hills of pasture. Black Angus and white face cattle added a stark contrast to the drab winter palate. As I glanced off to the side, standing alone in an empty field was a stately, towering, perfectly shaped, yet lonely oak tree. It stood starkly naked in the emptiness of the sprawling tan pasture. Its grey branches almost blended into the low grey clouds. They stretched for yards horizontally and then reached up to the bleak winter sky. The smaller branches reached out their spindly, leafless fingers in an effort to provide the spring and summer leaves every square inch of opportunity to catch the life-giving sun that sustained it through probably more than a century. I wondered about all it had witnessed during its years and wished it could tell its story.
For all its beauty, the old naked oak stood alone. There was not another tree or bush for at least a hundred yards. But yet it stood proclaiming to all who would care to notice the magnificence of our great creator God. No one with an ounce of spirituality could miss its message and witness.
Many times we feel alone in the field where God planted us and asks us to make a difference and have an impact with His witness and message. We try to live our lives in the way spelled out in Scripture. But we wonder if anyone notices or even hears the message. Are we the lone oak making God’s statement in the best way we can? Have we stretched out our faith branches to give every opportunity for God to use us to bring His message and light to the world?
The old magnificent oak probably doesn’t worry about such things. It just is and does what God has intended it to be and do. Maybe that’s the secret we all miss in our quest for meaning. We need to just be and do what God has intended us to be and do in the field where He has planted us. And never forget that we will be noticed!
Rev. Pete Hyde serves as chaplain with the South Walton Fire District
Author: Sowal Editor
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