The Tree!

I’m thinking about Isaiah’s words: 1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.(Is.12)

We hear a similar analogy in Jeremiah 17: 

8 They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

Jeremiah is referring to those who trust in God for the choices in their lives.  They shall be like a tree planted by water,   

This got my mental juices flowing!

All of life starts tiny and small.  A small shoot!  Just a seed!  

In Jeremiah’s time the issues of life were small. The choices were simpler.   Is life about just me?  Or, is life about God?  Do I find meaning and purpose inside myself?   Or outside, beyond myself?   Do I find meaning from God!  Or do I rely on the intelligence of mere mortals?

The decisions were fewer in that culture.  It was somehow easer to keep the focus on God.  At least for most of the population! 

Now I want to move into the more modern world. Say the early 1900s.  This was a world where people’s feelings of fullness and value were rooted.  Their place of meaning and purpose was found beyond human life in God. Life was still fairly simple and much less complicated.

However, as life often does, that reality changed.  Simple became more difficult to sort out.  And people began to move on!  Move to a larger world where God was becoming, somehow distant.  More secondary!  Maybe even absent on the consideration scale.  

The rings on the tree trunk widening to larger circles!

People were becoming more!  Most than simple!  That is, more than simple in what they had to choose.  Life was offering them a variety of choices. 

And their roots were not going as deeply into the soil of life.  

So, as history moved forward people naturally became less rooted.  Became more surface, with less depth. 

God became less!

The human mind became more!

Scripture talks a lot about this revolving cycle of humankind —   each life cycle, each generation!  And how these layers of history build upon each other.  Hundreds of years — centuries sometimes — of being connect to just one life source. 

Inside that tree the cycles, the generations, make their own mark in their own circle on the trunk of that tree.  And with every circle the tree gets bigger, and older, and different.  Some rings — circles — are thin; telling of some difficult time were growth was hard.  Some rings are wider; showing a time of good growth.   Some rings are darker; telling of summer time growth.  Some are lighter; which tells us that Spiring was better then.  

We can only see the outside of the tree — the bark, branches and foliage.  What we don’t see is the inside.  The life circles, and the root’s thirsty tentacles reaching down deep into the earth.  Finding moisture!  Finding life!  

From that old amazing tree we find shade to rest beneath.  Sometimes fruit to eat.  Its offer of wood to build with.  A place for birds to make their nests.  And at the end of the yearly cycle the colors in the fall of the year.

The analogy of a tree can teach us about life; and how to grow.  The tree can teach us the importance of staying connected to our source of true -- real -- life. 

A tree’s life cycles can also help us to understand the cycles of human history as well.  How we, like the tree, have lived through each year, each century, with our different circles of thin or wide, light and dark.  

From a small little culture of farm and family; that has moved from the simple life to the city.  A city filled with multiple opportunities, more education, more jobs to be done.

 Soon there were telephones. The radio!  Then television!  All  offered an entire new world of instant information.  Then came the computer.  And an amazing technology that place an encyclopedia of information in the palm of our hands.

And that small-town-farm mentality got lost in all the circles.

The world has certainly made huge changes since Jeremiah spoke in 630-580 BC.

When Jesus’ ministry began, he himself, made some huge changes in the culture and traditions of his religion's past.  Creating new circle in the old patterns of living.

Through the centuries the tree, with all its cycles and seasons, has never lost its need for its life source.

Jeremiah’s words, all those years ago, are still relevant for us today. No matter how much our world has change; the questions are still here for us to answer.  Which choices shall we make?  Will we put our trust in the mortal intellect?  Or will we choose to stay connected to the true source of all life?

Will be trust in the Lord?  And grow strong like the tree, planted by water, with no fear, no anxiety?  Never ceasing to bear fruit that lasts on God’s good earth?

Here is the point I hope I have made about the tree analogy.  Which is our God given ability to adjust and live fully!  To have hope and joy in the living.  Or not?

The problem?

The tree adjusts quite naturally!  It has no choices!  No decisions to make!  It just stays in one place and grows!  It’s only complications are climate changes, and the weather that comes with climate change. 

On the other hand, we have brains, intellect.  We have memories of the past.  And hopes for the future.  We have feelings attached to those memories and hopes.

What we don’t have, is a vision!  A vision of the new possibilities that the past did not have.  

Our life cycles have most definitely widened — expanded — our possibilities for change!

The one thing that will never change is our need for God. 
      Our need for God to guide us through it all.  
            To keep us strong and healthy.

As the circle of our tree trunk grow, may our roots move deeper into a wisdom that only God can give; as we continue to evolve through all the opportunities and possibilities this human life has to offer.

in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

5 Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. 6 They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 7 Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8 They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. 9 The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? 10 I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.(Jere. 17)