09/11/2026
Some awesome tree fruit from the week!
Juglans cinerea, commonly known as butternut or white walnut and a Gymnocladus dioicus, Kentucky coffeetree.
Did you know that a tree grows in two directions at the same time? It’s always growing down and growing up. And what’s interesting is the root system mirrors the fruit system. Now here’s what’s fascinating about a tree. Its nature is both gravitropic and phototropic. So the root system grows away from light and toward gravity.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1:2-4)
And before the tree can ever grow upward, the seed first has to grow downward into darkness, resistance, pressure, and dirt. The roots literally have to fight their way deeper underground. But once the tree breaks through the surface and starts growing upward, there’s less resistance and honestly that is one of the most beautiful pictures of how life works because the work you do in the dark when nobody sees you, when life feels difficult and heavy, is what creates the success people admire later in the light.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)
Everybody wants the fruit. Everybody wants the visible success, recognition, and results. But very few people are willing to go through the lonely seasons that creates it.
“But whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.” (Psalm 1:2-3)
