Annual rings - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2026

And if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.
Ecclesiastes 11:3

Annual rings
Before me lies a thick spruce trunk on the forest floor. The annual rings are clearly visible. I wonder how old this tree was. I eagerly begin to count. I have already reached 100 halfway through. There are surely another 100 rings to the middle. This tree is over 200 years old! By the width of the rings, I could easily see when it had good years and when it could only add a little new wood. Eventually, it was felled and now there it lies.

Involuntarily, I think of human beings. Some become very old. For them, there are many “annual rings”. Not all these years are the same. Everyone experiences good and difficult times in his life. But eventually, death comes. Just as the felled tree remains in its place, so is the future of people decided by death – no matter how good or bad, how short or long life was.

What matters is whether we have turned to God during our lives. Why? Because not everything we have done is good and right. Sometimes we have also acted wrongly. God cannot overlook the wrongdoing. Yet He calls to us: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Whoever believes in the Saviour during his lifetime will enter into the radiant glory of heaven one day. Those who do not repent will have to meet Him as the divine judge.

Today’s reading: 1 Chronicles 6:1-32 · Psalms 80:9-19