My Parable Stick

Matthew 13:3       “Then he told them many things in parables and illustrations saying, . . . “

When you are teaching people new truths about life, sometimes just saying the words isn’t enough.  You must make an impact with a demonstration. 

As a youth minister working with high school students, it was difficult to provide illustrations that related to their lives.  This was the case when we looked at forgiveness from our past failures and sin.  During the 70’s, the drug culture had worked its way into every fiber of our society.  In order to bring young people to the realization of grace and God’s love, I needed a parable to get their attention.

While walking at the edge of some woods one day, I saw some odd looking trees.  They were dead but their trunks had a strange twist.  I broke one off and took it to my father to ask what type of tree this might be.  He told me that it was a common ash tree.  I asked, “What caused all the twists in the trunk and made it die?”  He said, “Honey suckle”.  My response was, “Right!  Honey suckle is a thin vine that has a smelly bloom.”

Then we headed to the woods for my object lesson.   There we saw several young trees alive with honey suckle vines all around the trunk.  The thin vines were easy to break and appeared to be harmless with their beautiful blossom smell.  The trees and vines were both alive and growing quite well.  Upon closer examination though, the vines had wrapped themselves around the tree several times and gotten bigger.  At the same time the sapling had grown its bark around the vines. 

At first glance you could not even see the vines because the bark had grown over them and they were hidden from site.  But then as we looked around, we saw similar trees withering and dying.  I broke off a couple of dead trunks and took them back to the house.  Then a few weeks later on a trip to a craft shop in Gatlinburg where a tree with that same condition had been made into a walking stick.  The craftsman had carved a picture into the top, polished the stick, and then coated it to make a beautiful possession. The dead trunk had been given new life.

With the new walking stick in hand, I now had my parable.  That visual illustration has made a big impact on the lives of people with which it was shared.  The scars are still there, but the master craftsman has turned them into something beautiful.

Society feeds us so many things that the Lord says is bad for us.  They are just little things that we welcome as not harmful or a major sin.  Over a period of time these things wrap their way around our lives but we don’t notice them.  Soon they get a choke hold on us and we cannot get rid of them. 

Every Christ Follower has scars from the past.  They may not be visible from the outside, but they are always there.  But the amazing thing about the Lord is that he can take those scars, through his grace and forgiveness, and turned them into a beautiful person who can relate to others who have similar scars.  His forgiveness in our lives may never wipe out the scars of abuse, drugs, or other events from our past, but it will allow us to focus on how beautiful we are when we turn our lives over to Him.