Happy New Year! Hopefully the turning of the calendar offers you hope for good things in the coming year.

This past weekend our family took a short trip to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. It was a great time to get away, drive up to the San Joaquin Valley, and explore the beauty of the Sierra Nevadas. It was an adjustment to go from the hustle and bustle and stress of Christmas to the peaceful pace of the outdoors where you can slow down, hear yourself think, breathe, and appreciate God's creation. Though it was a short trip, I'm thankful that God gave us this time and helped us make it back safely.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon are known for their forests of giant sequoia trees which are among the largest in the world. Some of the trees are over 270 feet tall and 2,000 years old. It was awe-inspiring to hike among the groves of these giant distinguished trees. It was even more amazing to think that, at one time, they were just small saplings. That they weren't always this large but grew over time. I didn't get a picture of it but there was an area where young sequoia trees had been planted. Though not especially impressive now, I'm sure future generations will be gawking at those trees in another thousand years or so like we were today.

In the Bible, the growth of such trees are a spiritual lesson of the growth of God's kingdom. In Matthew 13:31-32, it says, "Jesus told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.'" Like a seed, once planted, God's kingdom germinates, sprouts, becomes a sapling, and then a mature tree which grows and grows over time. Though we might not be able to explain it, God's kingdom will grow, expand, become great and serve as a blessing to those who experience it. In the same way, may God's Word, like a seed, be planted deeply in our lives, that we might grow spiritually bigger, stronger, and more mature in the coming year!