Lesson from my tree

My husband and I planted a new tree at our home in memory of my mom. This was a simple Cypress tree and symbolized many generations. I love the shape of this tree. It was green and full of life. A few weeks later, those vibrant green turned brownish. Hin sing and I chose to believe that it was still striving, just color was kind of fading.  In reality, we were just in denial......
After a few months of observation and watered it faithfully, we came to the conclusion that indeed the tree was not alive. Fortunately, home depot has this "unconditional" refund policy, they accepted our return and replaced it with no question asked.

A Beautiful vibrant tree

When Hin sing digged out the old tree and prepared for the replacement, he was surprised to find out that this tree came with a thin claypot wrapped around all the roots, when he watered it so faithfully, he didn't realize that he was only watering the soil outside the claypot, and none of the water/nutrients reach to the center where all the roots were. In another words, the root did not receive any water or nutrient while sitting there in our front yard.
This reminds me of our spiritual journey, we can flood ourselves with rituals, services, seminars, video, devotional material, but fail to let these precious resources reaching to our hearts and soul to transform our lives.

Same tree, no life left. 

We may fool ourselves thinking that we are growing, but everyone around us notice our color is fading, the shape may still look the same, but inside is dying.

As I prepare to give a talk on parenting, I will definitely use this tree as my object lesson. We diligently teach and nurture our children, only with the world view.... sucess in academic, good in sports, outstanding in music but fail to teach them God's truth and principles. Spiritual matter are not part of our daily conversation with them, just like we only water the soil around the claypot but not the roots inside.

"Show me you ways, O lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior and my hope is in you all day long"  Psalms 25:4-5