Integrity: It’s what you’re made of That Counts

I love trees. And in all my conversations over the years, I’ve never heard anyone say cottonwood is their favorite.

My love for trees deepened when I bought our current place ten years ago. It seemed perfect—five acres in the countryside just south of our hometown, with some grass to eventually put in a horse pasture and a beautiful woods that my kids could run through as they grew up. What a blessing!

Shortly after our September move-in date, a warm southwest wind blasted the property. Walking through the forest after the storm, I observed that many large branches had broken off all over the place, leaving unsightly and dangerous “widow-makers”—broken, dead tree branches hanging down from live trees like daggers ready to drop. What I thought was an idyllic kids’ playground now felt more like sending them to play on a freeway, especially if there was even a hint of wind.

Because my children were young at the time, and my wife and I now saw the woods as dangerous rather than fun—and because it seemed to be this one type of tree that had the issue—I decided to eliminate the danger. I bought a chainsaw and called my friend Dan from church, who used to be a logger in Alaska, to see if he could help me take down the problem trees. He came out, and we got to work.

Dan taught me that these huge, furrowed-bark trees were cottonwoods. The largest measured four and a half feet in diameter and was well over 100 feet tall. What a crash it gave as it fell! When I asked Dan what we could get for the lumber, he gave a bit of a smirk and replied, “Well, we might be able to get somebody to come and take the logs away for free since you have quite a few of them.”

I was shocked and disappointed. As I surveyed the massive logs on the ground, I couldn’t imagine this amount of lumber wouldn’t be worth something! I didn’t yet have the experience to realize that the very reason we were cutting them down—their tendency to break under pressure—was the same reason they were poor for building projects and even firewood. As one of the fastest-growing native “hardwoods” in North America, the lumber is plentiful and not in high demand.

They looked impressive.
They grew quickly.
They towered over the woods.

But the wind revealed what they really were.

Proverbs 27:21 says,

“The crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold, but a man is tested by the praise he receives.”

In other words, pressure reveals substance. Just like fire reveals the purity of metal, exposure reveals the character of a person.

And sometimes the very thing that reveals us is success. Praise. Recognition. The appearance of growth.

There have been seasons in my own life when I was more concerned about looking impressive than becoming strong—and, in transparency, that can still be a challenge for me. But I have learned that while delighting in the Lord and meditating on His Word, and walking with the wise, do not always produce flashy outward change, He is building in us something deeper, something richer.

It’s not how fast you grow — it’s what you’re made of.

Integrity determines durability.

When you build your life on anything other than principled truth, you’re simply hoping the winds of life never blow—and hope is not a strategy. Eventually pressure comes. And when it does, it reveals what’s inside.

The cottonwood grows fast. It looks big. It looks strong.

Until the wind blows.

Then the branches snap under pressure, exposing the weakness that was there all along.

So the real question isn’t how impressive you appear.

It’s who you are becoming.

Build great habits.

Cultivate gratitude. It builds humility.
Read wisdom daily. It builds discernment.
Walk with the wise. It builds internal strength.

So who do you want to become?

And what habit will help you become it?

Start today.