The Missing Tree Planter

BRUCE  LICHT

Imagine a person walking down a busy street and witnessing sheer absurdity. A worker is feverishly digging a hole, only to immediately shovel the same soil back into it. Again and again, the cycle repeats. No progress is made, no purpose is visible—just frantic motion trapped in a senseless loop.

Bewildered, the observer approaches the worker and asks, “What are you doing? This is illogical. You are working yourself to exhaustion and getting absolutely nowhere.” The worker looks up, wipes the sweat from his forehead, and replies, “Well, usually there’s another guy who plants a tree in the hole. He didn't show up today, but I figured I could do my job without him.”(1)

This comical image of the missing tree planter is a metaphor for the modern human condition. We are diggers and fillers, obsessed with the mechanics of living while ignoring the source of life’s growth and the ultimate purpose of our work. We build careers, accumulate wealth, and curate our identities, but wonder why our landscape remains a barren stretch of dirt rather than a flourishing garden.

We carry out the “job” of life on our own, ignoring the very One who supplies the nutrient-rich soil, seeds, water, and sunlight. This story shows that living without God is not merely a foolish choice, but a fundamental collapse of meaning itself, a severing from the source of life, and a drastic narrowing of what’s even possible.

We have all heard the saying, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” The necessity of God becomes most visible in the foxholes of our lives. It’s a universal truth that when the ground shakes, the diagnosis is grim, or the shadows of mortality loom, the illusion of “independence” vanishes. In moments of real terror, the human soul cries out, “God, help me!”  In that instant, we reluctantly admit that we are not the masters of our fate. We realize that the shovel in our hands cannot save us from the pit we’ve dug for ourselves.

Yet, what’s most striking about human nature is our spiritual amnesia. The moment the crisis passes—the artillery fire stops, the bank account recovers, or the prognosis improves—the “temporary believer” reverts to self-rule. We tell ourselves, “Who needs God? I’m smart. I don't need help. I handled that.” We retreat to the mantra of “me, me, me.” We fire the tree planter, and go right back to our futile digging.(2)

To live without God is to confuse activity with achievement. We may move a mountain of dirt, but without God, we are merely rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. True fulfillment is not found in the swing of the shovel, but in the life that takes root in the hole. When we insist on doing the work alone, we reduce our efforts to purposeless repetition. But when we acknowledge the One who adds life to the seed within the soil, our labor changes from a cycle of futility to a growing, thriving forest.