The acorns have been raining down today, pinging on my metal porch furniture and playing cops and robbers’ music on the tin roof next door. Every acorn I looked at today was a different color — browns and blacks and greens and oranges, some with their fancy carved hats, others without. I found one acorn, dark green, striped in yellow. I picked it up and put it in my pocket to take a photo. Hours later when I remembered the acorn in my pocket, the stripes were gone when I took it out. It was so pretty, looked like a little pumpkin.

The mighty oaks drop thousands of acorns each year. In a mast year, a heavy production of acorns that occurs every two to five years, a tree can drop 10,000 acorns. An oak tree doesn’t produce acorns until it’s 20 years old and at age 59-80 the trees are at their peak of acorn production. The little acorns have everything in their tiny husk to become a mighty oak. The acorns support birds and other animals and over 500 species of moths and butterflies.

We, too, are acorns on God’s mighty oak tree. Each of us is full of God given potential to become a mighty oak of faith, dropping our acorns, spreading the gospel, helping others grow into Christians. Just as the little acorns need nurturing to grow, each of us needs God’s grace to reach our full potential. We struggle through wind and storms, like the tiny oaks, that hinder our growth but with God’s strength we overcome life’s challenges and struggles. The dense canopy of the oak can provide shelter just as God gives us refuge and protection. Our steadfast faith in the Lord helps us find our inner oak tree.

In the Bible the oak tree symbolizes strength, stability, endurance, shelter. God wants us to plant our faith deep like the mighty oaks’ roots. Biblical scripture uses the oak tree as a symbol of righteousness and refers to God’s people as “oaks of righteousness.”

God has a master plan for our life. We accept Jesus into our hearts and we’re rooted in God’s word just like the acorn sprouting roots to grow a mighty oak. God will watch over us as we grow spiritually through prayer and Bible study. We have to let God nurture us as we make choices in our life. God will provide for us helping us put down strong roots of faith. An English proverb states, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.” A little acorn of faith can grow us into a mighty oak of righteousness. Psalm 92:13 states, “Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.”

“The humble acorn teaches us that the greatest things often come from the smallest beginnings.” — The Druid’s Garden