Petrified! How Did That Happen?

I’m standing in northeastern Arizona in the Petrified Forest National Park. A dry wind rustles clumps of grass amid the treeless, barren hills. Broken sections of stone cylinders lie on their sides and populate the hills as far as the eye can see. The stones are big and small, in beautiful shades of white, tan, rusty brown, dark brown, and black. They all look like logs. Because they were.

Scientist types tell us that 225 million years ago, when dinosaurs were just appearing—Day Five of Creation! (if you’re so inclined)—this very spot was a lush forest, green and full of life. And it flourished on a gigantic flood plain.

When trees fell, the mineral-laden waters (silica to be exact) soaked through the wood. Iron oxide colored the wood red, orange, and yellow hues. Manganese oxide created blue, purple, and black. And the original carbon produced shades of white and gray. Beautiful petrified logs, hard as granite, scattered wide across a now-barren landscape.

Once every tree was full of life. The whole landscape was full of life. Like people.

How often do people experience abundant personal or spiritual life, then as years go by, they get stiff or dried up by routine, by pressures of life, by complacency, by pride?

People’s souls get petrified. Even young people’s. Even mine.

Have you ever discovered yourself to be petrified in some way?

Seems to me that people get petrified more easily than logs. Logs need special circumstances, but people get petrified by simply not choosing to remain vibrant and open to growth. They don’t fully live. They merely exist.

If you’re merely existing, or resistant to growth, please be careful. You could petrify.

The world is constantly changing, And God is constantly giving life, the kind that fills us now and carries us into eternity.

Choose growth. Positive change. The life of God’s Spirit.

And leave petrification to the logs.