From the Home Place

April 12, 2026

Well, guess what? The wind is going to blow for the next two days – steady at 22 and gusts of 50 mph! Today’s high should be decent at 72, so let’s all “blow” to church and watch our Lord work in and through His people.

Friday, Miss Deb, Coffee and I traveled through part of the Black Hills of South Dakota. We noticed two things of concern: the Hills too are extremely dry, and they too have had damaging winds this past winter. We say many trees with the top half blown off, or the whole tree blown over, roots and all!

Blow over trees happen most often when a forest is thinned for the health of the remaining trees, yet thinning also increases the possibility of blow overs. You see, when pine trees grow 50-60 feet in height on a mountain, their root system is still quite shallow. When the forest is actually “overpopulated” with trees, there is little blow over because the trees rub against one another rather than blow over. Before thinning a forest, each tree has an overly close neighbor which uses much of its sunshine, soil nutrients and moisture, preventing many of the trees from reaching their potential size.

So, on a mountain covered with pines, you can either thin and have healthier, larger trees, and an increased probability of blow over. Or you can allow those trees to be overcrowded increasing the probability of disease, fire danger and stunted growth. Every state has to choose which method to use.

One of the things we need to remember, God has told us to “manage” the world upon which we live. As such, we need to thin forests to keep them healthy, but that also increases of chances of blow over when you have a season of extreme winds like this year has been so far. As usual, management requires risk.

The situation with the Black Hills forests appears to be a great illustration for how God works in our lives as well. When we are allowed to “grow up” with a great support system around us, a person will tend to have what we call “a happy and healthy upbringing.” With parents, grandparents, family members and friends all working together to help a young person grow into an adult, that young adult’s support system can also become that which keeps the young person from reaching their full potential!

That is why, God has built into each person a natural desire to be independent and to want to learn how to live on their own. The problem is that when that young person starts to live on their own, the possibility of “blow over” is now greater because of the lack of a close support system. Quite often, young adults struggle with learning how to be healthy, functioning adults who able to stand on their own.

And that my friends, is where the local church is to become an active part of the life of a young adult. Their church family is not to replace their original family; the church family is to be an extension of that original family. The next stage of growth if you will.

When a young person chooses to “thin” the family structure, and to move out on their own to pursue the life God has for them, they usually become more vulnerable to bad things happening – blow over! Yet if that young adult quickly becomes part of a healthy church family, the odds of that your adult maturing into a fully functional adult increases.

A church family is to differ from a young person’s original family in that the church family allows the young adult to “grow,” yet they are there to give the young person others to “rub” on for support. That is why it is so important for older saints within the local church to get involved in the lives of the young adults who walk through your church doors, they need your support.

Truth be told, that is part of why God draws each of us to be part of a church family. From time-to-time when the winds of life blow hard, we all need the support of someone else that will allow us to “rub” against them during a storm. Within the church, we call such folks our prayer partners. They are the ones God has placed within our lives to help us stand tall against life’s trials, yet they are not to be so close that they stunt our growth.

A healthy church family will encourage me to “grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ” yet, they will not make excuses nor rescue me when God is attempting to do some “thinning” within my life. We must all sink our roots firmly into the promises of God’s word, be nourished by the fellowship of other believers, and learn to use the support system of the other saints at church. You see my friends, church isn’t about me, it’s about us.

It seems to me that a proper support system at my local church is there to help me learn to live my faith, not theirs, nor the faith of my earthy family. My church family is to push me to live by faith and to do the good works mentioned in the Bible. As such, my church family is there to support and encourage me, but they are also there to help me learn how to stand firm in the faith, to stand on my own.

Yep, the winds of life will blow against us, yet being involved in a Bible-teaching, Bible-living church will actually help us to learn how to stand firmly on our own. God’s plan is rather clever, isn’t it? As He gives us the desire to be independent, He has also established a system to help us be interdependent. “What an awesome God we serve!”

Helping other trees grow with you, Neal