The other day while I was walking, trying to get into the habit of exercise, I glanced over to my left and noticed a tall pine tree.

There was nothing special about it and there must have been at least 10 other trees around it. But, for some reason, I noticed this one. I thought about how straight it was which reminded me of the kind of life we ought to live.

When a pine tree is not straight it usually is because of some incident that happened that causes a crook in it. Our lives can veer off to the left or right when we take our eyes off of Jesus; when we allow our focus to be on other things.

Sin can take us down a path that we never intended to go and where we never thought we would end up. A crook in a pine tree can take away from its beauty and if we veer off the path, it affects our witness and makes the Lord look bad.

As I thought about this pine tree and looked at its base, I was reminded of its secure and strong root system. The rains can come, the winds may blow but the pine tree will most likely still be standing.

This is like if we have a strong spiritual foundation in Christ Jesus, then the storms of life can come our way and we can still be standing strong in our faith.

With God being my Lord and Savior, I want to be like the tree described in Psalms 1:3. It reads, "That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither — whatever they do prospers."