🎵Aesop’s Fables Month: The Oak and The Reeds
The Illusion of Strength
There is a dangerous illusion that rigidity equals strength. We admire the towering, ancient oak that refuses to budge an inch before the wind, and we easily despise the slender reeds by the riverbank that bend low at every passing breeze. Yet when the true tempest arrives, the illusion of strength shatters and breaks. Last month, I shared the song “Strong Enough to Bend” in my post about the clichĂ© Soft as a Kitten’s Ear. It fits this post as well, but I’m going with different music because the other side of breaking is when God Himself holds up a stop sign before you’ve consigned yourself to breakable rigidity.
Preventative Grace
“Oh my! How did you know that was my daddy’s favorite song?”
The tearful question came from family members of a man I had never met but whose daughter was a new friend who’d asked me to sing at her daddy’s funeral. Without knowing anything about the man, and out of hundreds of timeless hymns, I simply felt drawn to choose “In the Garden.” My song was not about applause or career advancement, it was about ministering to a grieving family huddled in sorrow in a small funeral home.
Looking back, that quiet holy moment revealed the true beauty of divine redirection. God had not wasted my voice when worldly stages slammed shut after failed auditions; He had simply preserved it to bring as a gift of comfort to the brokenhearted.
Over the years, there were multiple roadblocks whenever I came close to stepping into performance art as a career choice. Auditions derailed, opportunities vanished, and invisible walls went up suddenly. In the moment, those shut doors felt like bitter disappointment. But looking through the lens of preventative grace, I realize God was building a hedge of thorns around me. The entertainment world demands that you plant your roots deep like an unyielding oak, chasing applause and feeding an ego that eventually faces storms eager to snap it in two. God spared me from destruction by keeping me out of that harsh spotlight.
The Classic Fable Retold
In Aesop’s celebrated fable, an immense oak tree stood proudly along a riverbank, looking down with disdain upon the slender reeds growing in the shallows. “How pitiable you are,” mocked the mighty oak. “The faintest breeze forces you to bow in submission, while I stand unshakeable against the wildest gales of heaven.”
The quiet reeds made no defense. Soon after, a ferocious tempest tore across the valley. The proud oak dug in its roots and stiffened its massive boughs, determined to conquer the gale through sheer defiance. But the storm blew with unstoppable fury. Rigid and unable to yield, the ancient trunk splintered with a deafening crack, crashing violently into the mud. When the wind subsided, the fragile reeds gently rose upright along the water’s edge—soaked, yet completely unbroken because they had yielded to the storm.
The Broken Oak and Joseph’s Brothers
That shattered oak in the second panel of my artwork (The Result) finds its direct spiritual counterpart in the final frame (The Fulfillment): the prostrate brothers of Joseph. When young Joseph innocently shared his prophetic dreams of bowing sheaves, his brothers stiffened their necks in bitter defiance. Their towering pride refused to bend to God’s sovereign design, driving them to cast Joseph into a pit and sell him into Egyptian chains.
They believed their stubborn defiance had won. Yet decades later, when the fierce storm of famine swept the earth, their self-reliant strength snapped like that hollowed oak trunk. Brought to their knees by desperate hunger, they found themselves face-down on the cold stone floor of Pharaoh’s palace, bowing before the very brother they tried to destroy.
For them, pride went before their destruction. For Joseph, preventative grace held him back a few times—from going back to his father when his brothers sold him, from staying in his job at the palace when Pharaoh’s wife falsely accused him, and from getting out of prison when the other prisoners forgot to mention what they’d learned about him when they dwelt together. Yet, God’s providential hand turned Joseph’s brothers’ shattered rebellion into preservation after He raised Joseph higher at the perfect time. I blogged about this back in 2013 in my studies and commentary of the five books of Torah. That post is called The Cream Always Rises to the Top.
What God’s Word Has to Say…
Proverbs 16:18 (Berean Standard Bible)
18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
James 4:6 (Berean Standard Bible)
6 But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Genesis 50:20 (Berean Standard Bible)
20 As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.
Songs of a Yielded Voice
When we yield our gifts to God instead of demanding our own stage, He uses our voices for eternal comfort rather than temporary applause. Listen to these two songs that speak to the beauty of a humble walk with The Lord and of singing solely for His glory.
This presentation of “In The Garden” is beautiful and their YouTube page includes a link to a site called Music is God’s Gift. I don’t think I could’ve found a better version for this post even though I’ve shared the song before by other artists.
When I Sing for Him – Written by Dolly Parton and performed by Rydel Hernandez. I’ve never heard of her, but she does a mostly-good job. This was the only video I could find with the full lyrics, and there are some powerful ones in this song.
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