THE WOODCUTTER
In days of old the woodcutter was one who would go off each morning with his ax across his shoulder and head off into the woods to cut down trees. He would take all day and leave his days work lying on the ground. The next morning he would head off to the same spot and trim and clean off the trees that he had chopped down the day before. The following morning, again he would go and prepare the fallen trees into whatever he needed. This process would continue until all of the trees that he had cut down, many days before, were cleared away and stacked close by his home, ready for use.

My, how things have changed! We still have the woodcutter but we call them loggers and I would suppose the tree huggers have more caustic names for them. At one time the logs were an important commodity and filled each community with jobs, heavy equipment and even necessary building supplies along with heat for their homes. The highways were heavy with logging trucks filled to capacity with their logs of various sizes and kind.

Then the environmentalist’s became outraged because of the spotted owls and the loss of their natural habitats. The clear cutting of logs which caused erosion and floods. Some of these activists would chain themselves to the tree’s and some made their homes in the tree and were being taken care of by those who lived in their comfortable homes but encouraged the tree sitters with food and other supplies. Some of these tree sitters were sitting for weeks on end.
Their call to the nations was to stop cutting because we were depleting the forests!

Well, the complainers won and laws were instituted and clear cutting was banned in certain areas. The spotted owl was unencumbered and most of the tree huggers went home. However, not all was lost because the loggers still had some business, albeit, on a much smaller scale. Lot of the Logging Companies closed but those that scaled down contracted lumber from other countries to remain productive, which enabled the housing market to continue to flourish.

"Then God said; Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them on the earth and it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:11-12 I have to chuckle sometimes at mans finite mind and their understanding of how God works. God has planted so many trees on earth at the very beginning and He saw that they would yield seed which meant they would multiply and grow more and more trees.

Our country sides throughout our nation are full of trees of all kinds. Some have been standing for hundreds of years and some are young. Fires burn forests and the birds naturally find new habitats and the trees begin to grow again. But we bend to those, who are loud and create the most interruptions. We create laws to placate the unreasonable in order to smooth the ruffles and iron out the chaos.

But our God is faithful regardless as to how man acts. To those who love and obey Him, the Psalmist says; "For you will go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up; and instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up; and it will be a memorial to the Lord, for an everlasting sign which will not be cut off."

The trees of the forest and all around is a memorial that God is! His creation is a testimony! "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth!" Psalm 8:1 Jane Ann