By Brad Campbell –

Just a thought to help start your week.

A talking tree!  Well, not exactly.  This particular tree can be found in the wonderful little Orr Park in Montevallo, Alabama.  It stands there along with many other tree carvings.  Most are faces.  Some are animals.  But each is unique, carved by hand, according to the imagination of the artist.

Have you ever taken a walk through nature, a park, or even the woods and truly listened to all you hear?  There are usually animal sounds, either birds chirping or something scurrying along underneath the ground cover.  There may be a breeze blowing through the trees and leaves.  And there may only be the sound of pure peaceful calm.

God has ways of speaking to us through other individuals, of course.  We may hear His voice through that of a preacher in the pulpit, a friend with some advice we need to heed, or a neighbor shouting a friendly hello as he waves from his pickup truck window.  We may hear the Lord speak through the love of a pet that somehow knows to cuddle up and rub against us at just the moment we feel as if no one cares.  We can hear Him pretty much anywhere.

But in and through God’s creation of nature, especially, He speaks with the beauty of it all.  He can be found in the simplest of things and places like an old tree trunk in a small city park, or in the woods you may wander.  But He speaks.

This old tree obviously isn’t offering any audible words through the face carved into it.  But, because that face is there, because someone took the time to create it, this tree now speaks to everyone who will listen — “Hello, out there!  Smile!  God loves you!”  And that, He does.

As you go about your week ahead, I pray you will listen as He speaks, wherever and however it is you may find Him.

Just a thought.