We stood together on the crest of a hill, a gentle breeze rustling the meadow around our feet. The fields ran gently downward until they met a creek that gurgled happily in its course. A few years prior, an acorn had somehow made its way to the highest point of this hill, carelessly dropped there by a bird. Rains had germinated it, then roots had formed and pushed down into the soil. Soon a stem grew upward, then branches emerged, and then a few tender leaves. It was now an oak tree in miniature that rose just inches higher than the grasses around. He gestured toward that tree and said, “When God plants an acorn, he means an oak.1”
When God’s providence arranges for an acorn to come to rest on the crest of a hill, he means for it to burst into life and become a mighty tree. Within that half-ounce acorn lies the potential of a 30-ton oak. Given time and natural processes, it will become mature and mighty.
When God plants an acorn, he means an oak. When God plants a seed, he means for it to spring up to a harvest of a hundredfold. It is always God’s way that what appears to be little is meant to become much, that what appears to be weak is meant to become strong, that what appears to be doubtful is meant to prove his power. For it is, indeed, his power that works to multiply, his power that works to make such growth possible.
There are implications for our lives, of course. When God grants us the gift of salvation, he means for us to share our faith with friends, family members, and complete strangers until an entire church has sprung up and an entire community has been transformed. What begins small is meant to become big.
When God grants a gift of two talents, he means for it to produce four or eight or twelve. He gifts each one of us in different ways and expects we will make careful and deliberate use of our gifts to amplify their reach and multiply their power. What appears to be weak is soon proven to be strong.
When God grants us small seeds of character, he means for it to bloom into godliness that extends over our entire lives. We are not meant to remain content with a small measure of joy but to live lives bursting with it. We are not meant to remain content with merely tolerating others, but to love them—even (especially!) those who hate us. We are not meant to permit the mere beginnings of self-control, but to live lives of strong moral discipline, to be like cities that rest safe behind impregnable walls.
God neither asks nor expects us to do this in our strength or by our own power. Rather, where God sets the expectation, he also provides the power. Our task is to take hold of that power—to believe the gospel, to apply the gospel, and to see the gospel burst forth with divine power. Our task is to be obedient, to be faithful, and to see our little multiplied into far more than we could ask or even imagine.
- De Witt Talmage ↩︎
