Advise for Removing Stumps

When I was a little kid my parents bought a couple acres of land in Twin Rocks, Oregon, just a block off Highway 101 on the Oregon Coast.  The year was 1946, the war was over and dad could once again buy gas and tires for his 1930 Buick Master.  Often on Friday nights after he got off work at the paper mill, we would pile into the old Buick and head for the coast.  Mom would make a bed for me in the back seat. I still have memories of the dusty smell of the mohair upholstery as I would fall asleep to the rhythm of the tires bumping over the Wilson River highway through the Coast Range Mountains.

The highway passed through the Tillamook Burn, the forest that had been decimated by a massive forest fire over a decade earlier.  All these years later, much of the forest was still black skeletons of trees.  Salvage logging was still taking place, although most of the wood was now too old and rotten to be of any commercial value.

The forest fire had burned hundreds of thousands of acres and in some places extended all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  The property my parents purchased has escaped the fire, but had recently been relieved of its crop of old-growth timber, leaving huge stumps covering most of the area.  In order for the land to be useful for building my dad had to remove many massive stumps.  The first year or so of their ownership, they had a two-room cabin moved onto the property from another site.  We called this cabin "Number One" since my dad had plans to build two more cabins on the property that they could rent to the stream of tourists now frequenting the beaches of Oregon.

The stumps covering the property were all about the size of the one pictured above.  The situation was different, however, because my dad did not have a giant excavator standing by to dig around the stumps and rip out the numerous roots that anchored the tree to the earth.  He had a pick, shovel and a hand saw to accomplish the task.  Many times it would take a week or more, exposing each root with pick and shovel,  then cutting it off with the hand saw.   After completely freeing the stump from the ground he would throw a couple old tires into the hole and light them on fire.  Such activity was not against the law in those days and in fact old tires were dubbed "stump burners".  In the aftermath of the War were millions of thread-bare tires, providing an ample supply of stump-burners.  All of this was back-breaking, tedious and smoky work.  A stump could burn for a week or more before it was consumed.

A couple hundred yards away was a neighbor who was clearing about 20 acres.  He had a different method for removing his stumps.  He would drill a hole about two-inches in diameter in the dirt under the stump.  When the hole was deep enough below the stump he would put a couple sticks of dynamite down the hole and pack the lose dirt back into the hole.  When he touched off the dynamite the stump would be instantly removed!  In fact, frequently pieces of the stump would fly all over the property.  He apparently thought that if a little dynamite would work, then a lot of dynamite would work better.  One day while he was blasting stumps, a large root fell out of the sky through the roof of our car port!  To have traveled as far as it did meant that it went several hundred feet into the air!  But needless to say, our neighbor's method for removing stumps was much easier than my dad's method.

A lot of issues and problems in our life can be like stumps.  The tap roots can go deep into our hearts and minds.  We all have various and different methods to deal with these embedded deep-rooted problems.  Sometimes we attempt to ignore them. But we keep stumbling over them and falling on our faces.  We might get out the shovel and dig, but soon get exhausted from the effort.  At times it can seem like we are digging with a teaspoon!  We are on our hands and knees with fingers bleeding as we scratch at the rocky ground.  Finally we usually say something like this: "I give up! I guess all I can do is pray!" Translation:  "I have tried everything I can think of including this teaspoon! I guess I am just going to have to use some dynamite!"

Why is it that we only resort to the "dynamite" after we have tried everything in our own power and failed?
Prayer is the the Christian's "dynamite".  It provides access to power way beyond our own capabilities. Yet, we often think of it only as a last resort when we have exhausted every other possibility.  

Our Lord has provided every tool we need to live a victorious and powerful life.  In fact, he have given us the same things that He used to remain sinless in His life on Earth.  First, He used prayer.  In the Gospels we see Jesus continually taking time to pray for strength and to seek His father's will.  Second, He had the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in His life, as witnessed at His baptism when God's Spirit descended upon him.  Third, He gave us the the written Word, the Scriptures.  When Jesus was tempted by Satan He used the Scriptures to resist the attacks.  One thing that is significant about Jesus' temptation in the wilderness was that He had the Scriptures committed to memory. He was able to give Satan an instant rebuke from the Word.

Scripture memorization has fallen out of favor with many Christians. I believe much of this is due to the many different translations we use.  While the various translations can help us to obtain a better understanding of the scriptures,  they discourage memorization.  But the importance of having a working knowledge of the Word cannot be overstated. This does not mean that the whole Bible needs to be memorized.  But key verses can and should be locked into the mind where they can be recalled at times of need.  It should be automatic that when confronted by a particular situation an applicable scripture verse comes to mind. "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee."  This is more than just good advise. It is the key to spiritual survival.