Tree Talk

            South Africa has plenty of trees.  Because I grew up there I have lots of tree memories.  Like the time our neighbors killed an 8-foot cobra in their back yard and nailed it up on one of their trees.  Naturally, the snake was of far more interest to me than the tree it was hanging on.  Then there was my mom’s new little avocado tree that she was caring for so gently.  She regularly warned us not to mess with that tree . . . or else!  But one of the guys taking care of our yard just thought it was some kind of overgrown weed, so he ripped it out of the ground and threw it in the fire.  Boy that was dumb!  I don’t remember him working for us very much after that.

            My favorite tree, though, was the one my tree house was in.  My older brother went out one day and built it while I was in school.  When I came home he took me out to the back yard and showed me the cool little fort perched high up in the branches of a huge tree!  My friends and I enjoyed many hours of playing in that tree house.  Actually, I still find it hard to resist the temptation to climb a tree that has branches in easy climbing position.  Of course at my age I usually regret it the next day.  These arms and legs just aren’t suited for climbing trees anymore.

            Did you know that each one of us plays, works, and lives in one kind of tree or another?  In one way these aren’t literal trees that you can see, but in another way they are more real and lasting than any kind of wood that grows out of the ground.  They are the same trees talked about in the first few pages of the Bible, in the book of Genesis:  The “tree of life”, and the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.  Both trees were in the Garden of Eden, but God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit that grew in the good/evil tree.  They could eat all they wanted from the life tree, but they were warned that the fruit from the good/evil tree would kill them.  Well, as the original, rebellious humans, and being tempted by Satan to disobey God, Adam and Eve went ahead and did exactly what God warned them not to do – they ate the good/evil fruit.  That got them kicked out of the garden, banned from intimate fellowship with God, removed from the tree of life, and ultimately . . . dead.  They chose to live under the branches of the good/evil tree, which is the tree of death.  That’s the tree that every human being is born under . . . including you and me.

            But God promised not to leave us there forever.  In sending Jesus to die on the cross for us, he reintroduced the potential of living in the tree of life.  Before Jesus came, mankind had no choice but to live under the death tree.  Now, though, we can choose to live under the life tree.  Here’s what characterizes the death tree:  1. Slavery to self, which is bondage of the worst kind. 2. Forced obedience to our slave-masters (Satan and ourselves).  3.  Lonely separation from God.  4. Spiritual, emotional, and physical death.  In stark contrast, the tree of life is characterized by freedom, grace, fellowship with God, and the gift of life through Jesus Christ!

            So which tree are you living under?  Are you still trying to figure out the difference between good and evil, or right and wrong?  Or have you discovered and received the free gift of life that only Jesus can provide?  Either way, we’d love to have you hang out with the rest of us tree-swingers at God’s Rolling Thunder.

Derryck McLuhan

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