Encouragement

---

My son’s firewood business is brisk in the winter. Busy as a young beaver, he splits, chops, delivers and stacks with strength and agility.

This first year of his entrepreneurial endeavor has been an exercise in on-the-job learning. Some lessons are blunt and costly: pitching logs into the truck bed with too much gusto and too little aim, shatters rear window glass. This rude awakening has cooled his enthusiastic timber flinging.

Other lessons seem to give credence to Mom’s admonishment to be courteous and honest and to give good measure. Customers are calling for second loads. These positive responses fuel his wood stocking efforts.

However, the anchor lesson as he embarks on this labor demanding job lies in one inescapable absolute: ANY wood must “season” to be a good heat source. A tree, hard like oak and long since down, will produce steady burning and predictable warmth. As a young sapling, my offspring is learning that the green wood of a new felled tree has no season. First, it must be cut off from its root supply and lie quietly through an aging process. It is imperative for this downtime to pass before any splitting, chopping, delivering, stacking or burning takes place

Due time is an investment in waiting patiently for the germination of purpose. Eventually, like the season of Moses, the season of oak will produce a coveted hot and useful flame. My young son, unaware that he is enrolled in “Life Lessons 101”, will look back from his future maturity and see that this business yielded more than splinters, aching muscles, and a meager income. The prerequisites to the success of this wood work is analogous to his own quest to fulfill God’s plan for him.

As his loving parent, my prayer is this: Let my budding lumberjack embark on life’s journey with steps that direct him toward a manhood of wisdom and integrity. More than that, I pray for him to understand that in our cries to be used by God, He delivers, but FIRST… He seasons.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE