The Acacia Tree – A Life and Faith Story
The spiritual significance of the Acacia tree, symbolising regeneration, perseverance, and integrity sees it featured in the Bible. The careful use of this durable and resilient wood in crafting sacred items underscores the eternal, pure, and precise nature of God’s covenant with His people.
What was life like for you as a young person?
“Life was really good,” says Acacia. “Much simpler than life today.”
Born on the Gold Coast, his grandfather moved here between the two great wars, he grew up in Burleigh Heads at a time when the population of the entire Gold Coast was barely 60,000 and everyone in Burleigh knew each other. Along with Burleigh, the major population centres were Southport, Currumbin, Coolangatta and Tweed Heads.
“You thought you were going to the big smoke when you went into Southport to go shopping”, he says.
He spent that idyllic time adventuring, exploring the swamplands and canals, building rafts and going to the beach to body-surf, only trying board surfing in his late teens. He attended Burleigh State School and then Miami High School.
When did you begin think of yourself as a Christian? What was that like for you?
“My mum came from a strong faith family and she and my Gram were staunch members of the Anglican Church at Tweed Heads,” he says.
From a young age, Acacia attended the Anglican Church at Burleigh Heads. His family became close with the family of Sunday school teachers and missionaries from the church, his sister going on to marry a man who became a minister, and this connection was fundamental to his faith journey.
“Being part of the church was always a natural thing.”
Acacia was a member of the ‘High Teens’ club and involved in the Church of England Boys Society.
“Christianity was always just part of life, but it became something very conscious when Mac, a church leader, started taking the youth group to the Youth for Christ rallies, when I was around 12,” Acacia explains.
“That was probably the point where I really made a commitment. At the end of the rallies, they would ask people to come up to the stage and at one of those meetings I answered the call and went up and committed my life to Christ.
“It went on from there and I became an Altar Boy, a Lay Reader, and a Sunday school teacher.”
How has your life journey been shaped by your life in Christ?
“I’ve always felt a real presence of God and that has just become stronger and stronger as the years have gone by,” he says.
“Rightly or wrongly, I often prayed for successful outcomes for things like exams and always felt like I had an answer “yeah, you’re going to be ok” and now I feel like I have a real relationship with God in that I do definitely feel that his hand has protected me right through my life.
“I think there are so many occasions when I should have been seriously injured and I have come through unscathed… doing stupid things a 17–18-year-old would do, but I always came out ok.”
One hair-raising example involved some very unsafe driving!
“I was riding a motorbike in my board shorts and thongs and hit an oil slick left by a car at the front of Kirra and as I went around the corner the back wheel of the bike slid out and I had to put one of my feet down on the ground to steady the bike.
“Fortunately, that foot, thong and all, hit the oil slick and slid along until I was able to straighten the bike out!”
“I thought ‘wow that could have gone so badly’. Some people might call it luck, but I don’t.”
Acacia doesn’t believe in luck, because he’s never been lucky in the sense of winning raffles or prizes, rather, he believes he has been protected and blessed.
“I have always thought that everything happens for a reason, and you just have to search for that reason,” he says.
What is it like to be part of a faith community?
Acacia has always been part of a faith community and it’s where he feels comfortable. Interestingly, his wife does not share his same deep faith, and he describes her as “spiritual” rather than “religious”. But his Christian faith was something she understood, honoured and accepted before they were married, and she agreed to raising their children in the Anglican Church.
“Up until the youngest was about 11 or 12 we would always go to church as a family and the kids would go to Sunday school,” he explains.
“Then, they started to question whether they wanted to continue to attend church, and I very much wanted to put my foot down!”
Acacia’s wife helped him to see that their children needed to experience their own faith journey in their own way. He believes in leading by example and has shared his faith with his grandchildren by introducing them to the 9.30am Sunday service.
How would you encourage people who are finding their way in life and faith in our changing world?
Acacia says the distractions of the modern age such as technology, social media and television (he didn’t even have television until a couple of years into primary school) have taken over from the connection to community that the church once provided.
“Robina does very well to deliver the message of God’s love in a way which is relevant and engaging and resonates with people,” he says.
“The struggle for the Anglican church is to build more churches like Robina.
“It is a vibrant parish that’s alive and growing, a place of community connection and care when many of the mainstream churches are finding it hard to attract ministers and stay open.
“My message to anyone who is thinking of coming along is just to try it, see if you like it and see if you can take your faith and your relationship with God further and deeper with us.”
With gratitude to Acacia for sharing this story, and with blessings for the week ahead,
Di