The Tree on Borrowed Time

In 2019, arborist Tom Smiley of Bartlett Tree Experts examined a massive red oak in Charlotte, North Carolina, that hadn't leafed out properly in three seasons. The homeowner wanted it removed. Smiley asked for one more year. He aerated the compacted soil around the roots, applied deep fertilizer injections, and pruned the deadwood choking the canopy. "The tree isn't dead," he told the owner. "It's just stopped growing."

Twelve months later, that oak exploded with green. The roots had been slowly suffocating under layers of construction fill from a neighbor's renovation — packed earth that nobody thought to address. One year of deliberate attention changed everything.

But Smiley will tell you plainly: not every tree responds. Some have already died inside while still looking alive on the outside. The window for intervention is real, and it closes.

This is the tension Jesus holds before us in Luke 13. The Gardener kneels in the dirt beside your life and says, "Give it one more year. Let me work the soil." That is breathtaking mercy — God Himself digging around the roots of our hearts, breaking up the hard-packed ground of complacency and self-satisfaction. But the parable doesn't end with infinite extensions. The grace has urgency built into it. The Gardener's patience is not the same as the Gardener's permission to remain fruitless forever. This is the year to bear fruit. The soil is being turned right now.