While clearing brush the other day,
I came upon a little tree.
For such a sapling it was tall
But was much too thin and spindly.

It was wrapped tight with thorny vines
And scrub and brush grew close around.
I would try to clear around it
And save the little tree I’d found.

The thorny vines gave it support;
But what an awful price to pay,
For they would stop all outward growth
And choke its very life away.

The shrubs and brush, that pushed up close,
Had kept the little tree from light.
No blowing wind to strengthen growth,
It had become a spindly sight.

The brush I cut from close around,
I quickly cast upon a fire.
I tried to pull the vines away
But they had grown as tough as wire.

So deep imbedded they’d become;
The ugly thorns resisted me.
They tore my flesh and brought the blood
As I removed them from the tree.

Then it was left all by itself,
This lovely little tree I’d found.
But by itself, it could not stand
And it bent low down to the ground.

Destined to be a mighty oak,
It bowed down low in front of me,
Now only I could guide its growth
And save this little spindly tree.

Just like that tree our children are,
If we don’t guide what friends they choose.
The ones in life we hold most dear,
We can so very quickly lose.

The thorns of life more quickly wrap,
Than those on that small spindly tree.
The things that shape our children’s lives
Are what they learn from you and me.

My fish farm partner, Alan Rudd, and I were clearing brush behind one of the lake dams when we found a little post oak sapling that we decided to save. It was rather small in diameter for its height and when we finally got all of the yaupons and green brier cleared away from it, we found that it was too weak to stand on its own. It had been depending on the vines and brush around it, to give it support. It was further weakened by the loss of nutrients that the more hardy brush pulled from the soil in which its roots grew and from the lack of sunlight, which was blocked out by the larger plants. We had to prop it up with sticks until it was able to grow strong enough to stand on its own. When I grow tomato seedlings inside my greenhouse, where they are not exposed to wind, I daily brush my hand across the tops of them and they respond by growing thicker, stronger stems. If parents want to “train up a child in the way he should go,” as Solomon suggested, then they mustn’t allow him to receive his training from questionable sources as the little sapling did.

Prov. 22:6