The righteous, the palm tree and a cedar in Lebanon

 “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.  Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.  They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." Psalm 92: 12-15.

As I read this Psalm these verses caught my attention, and I wanted to know why God compares us to palm trees? Why does He compare us to the cedars of Lebanon?

And get this, the palm tree bears flowers all year round, and in due time gives its fruit but there is always flowers on it, which makes us see that God wants to find flowers in us even when we go through deserts, that is, He wants us to show the beauty we have within us through a word, an attitude, to always flourish!

Now, the cedar of Lebanon is wonderful! When this tree is about 3 or 4 years old it measures a mere 5 cm, but its root in the other hand already has the depth of about a meter and a half. Looking on the outside it seems insignificant, 5 centimeters in four years, it's nothing! But God already knows what it will become, because before it shows up to be admired by the world, it takes root. When it reaches its optimum size it measures up to 40 meters high, its wood is used in great constructions, it is beautiful and valuable. By this time its root already deepened so much that it found its own waterways, the cedars of Lebanon do not depend on outside factors to be evergreen and bear fruit, it does not depend on rain, it is not afraid of the wind, the weather, anything like that because it already found its own source of water. And there is more, if the root finds a rock blocking the way it does not stop, but goes around I and goes way further even stronger.

Do not die in your desert! But use it to deepen your roots, be like Joseph that even being guided into the wilderness, sold into slavery, being accused of something he did not commit, being arrested... he did not die in the desert, did not have bad eyes, nor a dirty heart. He had no desire for revenge or any of this, but used up his time on the desert to deepen his roots, he remained faithful, he came in as a slave but ended up as a governor, because he never looked at the situation around, and so he flourished.

God knows how deep our roots are and what we can bear!

So what situation could ever stop us? What desert can make us die?

 It is precisely in the deserts that we deepen our roots, and that's the goal.

We must be firm on the rock that is Jesus, keeping our fellowship with Him and growing to become what he expects us to be, until we reach our own waterways, which will emanate to eternal life.

Collaboration: Elaine Scheffer.