Are You a bonsai or sequoia believer?

While I agree bonsai trees are both beautiful and treasured, still I find them to be profoundly sad. Trees are designed to be big! You climb in them, swing on their branches, or rest in the shade of their bushy canopies. The bonsai trees are too small for any of those activities. Mature trees will reach heights of 50 to 150 feet, but a mature bonsai tree will only reach 12 to 14 inches. Bonsai trees are not dwarfed by genetics; they are miniature by deliberate design. The blueprint locked inside the DNA of the young seedling promises a mighty giant, but that destiny is deliberately altered to create a bonsai. To grow a bonsai, the taproot is clipped, and the branches are pruned. Then, the developing seedling is planted in a shallow container. The bonsai reaches maturity, but it never reaches its potential. The miniature lives in a shallow dish, while its giant relative grows unconstrained outside. Locked inside every bonsai is the unfulfilled potential to kiss the sky. The reality that there are bonsai Christians goes beyond sad to heartbreaking. A bonsai Christian is the result of unrealized and unleashed potential—God-implanted potential. God's incorruptible seed was destined to produce believers who would be called "...trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified" (Isaiah 61:3 KJV). You are called to be like a tall, magnificent tree, visually displaying the nature and glory of God. You are called to be like a giant sequoia, a tree of righteousness, so God can receive glory from your life. He doesn't get glory when you live your life chained and defeated by sin or stunted with tiny faith and miniature results. Too many believers live satisfied and content as bonsai Christians instead of being the giants God intended. The giant sequoias that grow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains are among the oldest and largest living things of the earth. The bark on these towering wonders is over 12 inches thick. A picture doesn't capture the enormity of the sequoia. These supersized giants are spectacular, reaching heights of 250 feet. When I stood at the base of the General Sherman tree, named for its exceptional stature, I commented to my husband, "Look how small the branches are." My husband read the sign to me: The lowest limb was so high that it appeared to be very small; yet, it was six feet, eight inches in diameter, more than the average man's height. (www.nps.gov/seki/naturescience/sherman.htm/ accessed May 27, 2011). I felt like a tiny bug in comparison to their towering majesty. Although God put the seed of potential in every believer to live super-sized Christian lives, too often we live like a bonsai with bonsai results. Something is missing. That something is actually "Someone." We are missing precious Holy Spirit. Our unbelief has frozen Pentecost into a myth or a relic of the past, like a dinosaur. Whether by deliberate neglect, fear of the unknown, or skepticism, we have pushed Holy Spirit into a dark corner in the basement of our lives. Our inability to produce desired results leaves us questioning Him instead of questioning our beliefs and values. Oh yes, we have an abundance of activities, programs, and ideas - but no power. We have plenty of knowledge but little wisdom. We know how to compromise, organize, and economize, but we refuse to evangelize. Every believer has the DNA to be a spiritual king, but we have dropped the scepter and shirked away from the responsibility. We live as if Christianity was another self-help program, picking and choosing scriptures as though they were suggestions. We employ self- discipline to produce righteousness and holiness just as we would if we were trying various tips to stay on a diet. Our theology insists Holy Spirit exists, but divorced from His living presence, we live like deserted, hopeless orphans. The early church was born in the fire and power of Holy Spirit. If the early church needed power, why don't we still need it? Did God intend for the church to be born in a dynamic fire only to fizzle out? Or, has the lid of wrong teaching kept us from expecting and experiencing the infilling of Holy Spirit? Has unbelief cut our taproot, so we fail to reach for and receive the deep things of God?    Taken from my book "Precious Holy Spirit". Available in three different formats. Buy now.