The importance of a planted tree...

While I was in Israel I had the privilege of speaking to and amazing Jewish man named Ariel. He was a brilliant gentleman who took me around and showed me some of the historical landmarks in Tel Aviv. After we took our little tour I remember standing next to him by the old train station watching some of our  party talking under a great big tree. He leaned over to me and said the most profound thing. He told me that the tree they were underneath had massive roots to hold up its weight. Twice as deep as the tree was tall. Something broke loose in my spirit as I came to a realization: my whole life I've been measure by what is seen above ground. Its easy to look at my life and sum it up by the little that is seen. In fact there are many individuals who I know, who I work with that could easily be measured in such a way... even Ariel, who did not seem like much on the surface but just a few moments with him made me see exactly how deep those roots go. Men like him, like my pastors who's roots run deep... they support a lot of weight. They carry our generation on their backs.

It makes me sad to think of these because I also see people who seem larger than life... who think they have everything so figured out and then one day the wind blows just a little too hard and the roots snap and the world sees just how shallow those roots were. I wish my generation could get to the understand that there is nothing wrong with growing deep. That there is more to life than just growing up. There is more to life than your job and your spouse and your own little world. That when a small tree is cut down, if the roots hold steady... it will grow again.

"The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
13 planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
14 They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
15 proclaiming, “The Lord is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."

[Psalm 92:12-15]


I want that out youth would take this scripture and run with it. To plant themselves in the Lord's house. To grow and focus on an inward man and stop worrying about the outward. Hes dead anyway.