Sometimes what's shaking our faith is not the faith in ourselves, but our faith in the church is what's being shaken.

What does the allegory of the olive tree tell us about that?

First of all, the fact that a tree is used as the metaphor

lets us know something because a tree is a living thing. This is not the

allegory of the building where anything that goes wrong with it is because the builder didn't make it according to specs.

This one, it's a living thing and anything that is living

tends to have to change, to adapt, to evolve, living things experience fluctuations, health and sickness, strength and weakness, learning and growth, including growing pains.

Try to raise a child and you'll see how hard it can be to make a living thing turn out exactly the way you want it to be. So when the Lord says in

section one of the doctrine and covenants as he describes his church as the only

true and living church upon the face of the earth, he's still well pleased with it. The truth

assures that, but the living side of the church, again, blessed because it's

adaptability and it's ability to grow.

But the fact that it grows lets us know that there are things that needed to be grown

and learned from.

Because the church is a living thing, there are times when the Lord tells his servants exactly what he's going to do and

there are times where the Lord asks his servants what he thinks they should do.

There's a time in verse 33 for example where the Lord simply turns to a servant and says,

what shall we do under the tree? Now, this is the all-knowing Lord asking and not all-knowing servant,

what do you think we should do?

It seems that the Lord of the Vineyard is not just growing trees,

he's growing servants.

Remember the story that Lawrencey Dunn once told?

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