I wonder how long this cone has guarded this hazard. Clearly, the root has been doing its disruptive work for decades. The cone feels to me like an administrative shrug. It’s a much cheaper solution than actually fixing the problem. Hey, it says to me, if you trip, that’s on you!

But honestly, the only real fix is to get rid of the tree. In the battle between root and cement, the root will win every time.

This gets me looking for other ways in which nature is inexorably overcoming man-made structures. It’s an hour before I need to be at my event in Washington, D.C., so I wander the side streets with my new intention.

And as I do, I think about Jesus’s kingdom of heaven parables. A few of them have a theme of growth. A seed finds soil, growing to be a huge plant or producing a great harvest. There is a slow, relentless purpose to the kingdom. Not unlike that root.

The kingdom of heaven is like a root under a sidewalk. Though the concrete is as heavy and impenetrable as stone, over time, the root will move it.

I find a few examples of ivy crawling – over walls, across brick facades.

The kingdom of heaven is like ivy that starts small and eventually covers an entire building.

Have we lost this sense of unstoppable growth? Sometimes, I think that the churches I’ve attended are more like a thrown shadow of leaves on the cultural sidewalk of the world – having the appearance of godliness but denying its power (2 Tim. 3:5). Frankly, that’s what the world wants, anyway. We can be as treelike as we want, as long as we don’t try to move its concrete worldview.

But then I think about how the church has thrived in the midst of the most oppressive regimes and times. As the news breaks over a warmer relationship with North Korea, I wonder if we’ll see evidence of the unseen growth of God’s kingdom there. I pray that, even in that impossible situation, He has been at work.

The kingdom of heaven is like a vine behind an iron fence. The bars, meant to hold it in, became an aid to its advance.

Such is your kingdom, Lord! Who can stop its progress? Send forth its roots, its tendrils so that the world, in its iron obstinancy, in its cemented disregard, may know that you are unstoppable. Strengthen the subterranean church – comfort, encourage, protect them that they may someday see the changes you have brought about through their faithfulness.