"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree..."

Last year I was writing some studies on Character for my Church, and I ended up reading a good bit about palm trees. I was going through some of my notes, and realized once again how cool they were, and thought I should share this story.

I was about eleven years old when it happened. I had started to climb a tree, a big oak tree to be exact, and was probably only six or seven feet up when I slashed my hand on something sticking out of the tree. I looked, and noticed it was some barbed wire. There had probably been a fence running through that area when the tree was smaller, but as the tree grew it produced new layers of bark that overlapped each other, and by proximity, overlapped the barbed wire. At this point the barbed wire was an integral part of the tree, to the point that you would have to do radical surgery on the tree to get rid of the wire.

If that would have been a palm tree, however, things would have been different. If you tie a band of barbed wire around a palm tree, it will eventually snap the wire. That is because a palm tree grows differently than other trees. It’s actually more like a grass than a tree. While most trees, like an oak, add layers to the outside to grow, the palm tree grows out from its center, or heart, and pushes out in all directions.

The Bible tells us that…"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree..." (Psalm 92:12)

Now as we think about the difference between the two types of trees, let us draw a parallel. Instead of barbed wire, let us think about the bands of sin that a Christian will struggle against in their lifetime. It may be alcohol or drugs, bitterness or pride… something the devil will try to use to bind us and make us ineffective Christians. Which tree are you going to be like? Are you going to break the bands that bind you, or are you going to absorb them into your life so they are a part of you? Remember the tree... do you want a sin so deep in your life that it takes radical surgery to remove it?

Victory will depend on where your growth is coming from.

Is your Christian growth just a show for others, like the lives of the Pharisee’s of Christ’s day? Is it external only like an oak tree? Are you adding layers of good works to cover over your sin?

Or is your Christian growth coming from within, from the Holy Spirit that is dwelling within you? Is the Holy Spirit pushing all the bad things out from you, instead of integrating them into your life?

Ask yourself, are you flourishing like a palm tree?

 

~Steve