Yesterday I pulled down a branch on our oak tree to get a better look at the acorn growing on a higher branch. Indeed, it is a burr oak acorn! So pleased. The story continues:

LESSONS FROM THE BUR OAK ACORN © 2002 Molly Lin Dutina

One little acorn speaking to me so loudly about “the site of your tent, the curtains of your habitation, stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.” This acorn calls to you also.  Where are you holding back in your life?  Who are you hiding your affection from?  Those in your immediate family need and want to hear from you.  Though you might never have been one to speak in the past, they need to know your heart.  They are craving a word from you, an insight into your feelings, and how your actions relate to your emotions.  They want to know you, beyond the superficial shell that you present.  They are hungry to truly know and understand your deepest self. Those whom God has placed in your daily life are there for a purpose also.  Examine the site of your tent.  Is there a way you can stretch out the curtain and place of your habitation?  Ask the Father for the courage to move forward.  Pray He will show you how to lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.  Joyce Meier says you are to “deposit yourself with God and let God use you to bless others.”

Isaiah 54 goes on in verses 4 and 5 to say:

Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called.

Usually the greatest fear in becoming new is that people won’t like us.  “People pleasing” quashes the move of God more often than the devil ever attempted. Here the Word assures us that if we will try, God will come alongside and help us to do what we could not do in our own strength. We “will NOT BE ASHAMED.”  Powerful promise there; but first, we have to try.

Can we truly begin to comprehend the magnitude of “your Maker is your Husband?”  That is an intimacy few of us reach in this lifetime, and here it is offered in the Old Testament.  Now through the New Covenant we have the indwelling Holy Spirit to make this promise a reality.   The hard little cap of humanity can hold back the power of God that rests within each true believer.  When we choose to put aside the cap, like the one on the Bur Acorn, our lives can feed the hungry multitudes. Remember acorns used to be valuable to people as a food source. 

The Internet yielded information on how to make them palatable today. “Native Americans made acorns much more palatable by first blanching the oak nuts (in boiling water) with wood ashes to remove a bitter taste associated with tannins.”  The method involves boiling in water with ashes to leach away the tannins and make the nut meal sweeter.

You cannot receive what your Husband has for you as long as you are clutching your unfulfilled dreams in both hands.  Take the ashes of your unfulfilled dreams and offer them to God. 

Open your hands to Him.  As Christians, we also need to be cleansed with water. Water is mentioned 79 times in 70 verses in the New Testament. Jesus promised that He would give us living water. Another set of instructions for the acorns says they need to be boiled or roasted or both to make them palatable. We are told in Scripture that we may have to go through fire. I have always thought that perhaps like Reynolds Wrap, we go through fire so that we are ‘oven tempered for flexible strength.’ Hebrews 12: 28-29 says

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

To use acorns as food we are to “collect the acorns in the fall, when ripe. Remove shells and caps. The shells will come off easier if you first slit with a sharp knife.” OUCH! That sounds an awful lot like death of the seed. Crucifixion. To offer myself according to Romans 12:1-2:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

It seems that nothing will do short of that sharp knife and taking off that shell. So that Bur Acorn led me to ponder. Then to pray. To look up Scripture and pray some more. To begin to risk moving out of where I was comfortable and risk giving parts of my life to others. I have not been ashamed! I am getting to know my Maker a little better as my Husband. In addition, my earthly husband concurs that this is a good thing.

The preparation directions continue saying that “after boiling you may toast the acorns in a 350 degree oven for another hour.  They can then be eaten as they are or ground into a flour.” Some people seem to get a harder Christian walk than others do. Looking at the comparative value of acorns as nuts to be eaten or acorns as ground into flour, I can see momentarily the sense in that harder walk.  Flour can be used for many more products than nuts can.  Of course, the Father will produce breads, cakes, pies, gravy thickeners, coatings for all sorts of products, an endless variety of things with flour.  Nuts though have a limited use. Be encouraged if your walk is one where the grinding into flour seems to be the norm. Your flour will go further to spread the kingdom than the acorn that never let its shell be opened.  Your flour will go further than the roasted nut that was simply eaten as a snack food. God knows the plans He has for you, as stated in Jeremiah 29:11-14a

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to You.
You will seek me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.
 I will be found by you," declares the LORD."

Now I am amused by my pronunciation of the American Indian name… u’tahu can…. perhaps it is something like “You Twah you can.” You saw you can do this.  You saw it through months of prayer and preparation through the Scriptures.  You saw it through the Holy Spirit opening your eyes to the Father’s desire. Open your heart in love to those around you. Move beyond the usual limited communications and surface talk.  Get really intimate with God and then with others.  Let the nourishment that your life can be help others to grow into something terrific for the Kingdom.  You saw you can through this simple illustration. Now will you?

Next time you see an acorn, ponder how the cap is fitting that covers your acorn life and your rich innermost being.  Are you ready to strip away the cap and expose and expand that life for the Lord to use? The old saying is still true, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”