Cory Stories

The Problem Tree
by Cory Dague

All of us have had a bad day. Right? Have any of you had a bad day. Well, there was this man that was doing some work for a lady and he was not having a good day. While he was at work his drill quit working, he smashed his finger with a hammer, he went out to get in his truck to go home and the tire was flat he went to crank the truck and the truck wouldn’t crank. It was just a bad day. I am sure most of us can relate to a day like this. He asked the lady, “Mam, I am going to need you to give me a ride home.” She gave him a ride home and when they got there they both got out and as they were walking to the front door they past by this tree and the man rubbed both hands on the tree. The woman thought this was a little strange. She did not ask but was a little curious. The front door opened and this man’s whole countenance changed. He got a big smile on his face, the kids come running out and grabbed his legs yelling “daddy daddy”, he gave his wife a big hug and a kiss and said “Hey baby, how you doing, how was your day?” He was a totally different person then he was just a few minutes ago. So a little later he was walking the lady back out to her car so she could go home and as they were passing the tree she says, “Sir, why, I have got to know why did you touch this tree?” He said, “That’s my trouble tree. When I come home I have all this stuff on my shoulders and it isn’t right for me to bring all that in the house with my wife and kids so when I touch that tree I hang all my troubles up there on that tree. But it’s funny, the next morning they’re waiting for me so I go back by to pick them up but there is never as many there for some reason because I can’t remember all the troubles I left there. You know, Jesus is our trouble tree. He wants to be there so bad for us; He wants us to bring Him all our troubles. He said, Come to me all you who are burdened, all of you who work hard, all of you who have a lot of stuff on you because I am here for you, I want you to lay your troubles on Me. So when you go home, when you go somewhere, where you know you need to dump all that stuff, just go, God, I don’t want this stuff anymore, take it away, and it will leave you. It’s easy to say from up here on the stage, right?  Jesus is there for us if we will give Him everything, including our troubles, especially our troubles. Amen? Amen