A Depiction of Life

Have you ever noticed in an image of the mind it looks like that of a tree? Lets go on a journey of thought. So if we pointed that downwards toward the ground it would end up looking a root system. Or roots going down into nothing, or dirt. If you flip that around and point the tree of your mind upwards towards the sky, I want you to imagine it sprouting life, and leaf and then growing out more in abundance as it spreads towards that which is above the ground. And if we look up high enough we see sky and heavens. Now I want you to imagine God in heaven who tells the rain to come upon the tree, who brings the Sun and its nutrients upon the tree and light and tends to the tree lovingly as though it is a part of a garden. This garden has many trees, some utterly wilted by a life of sin, some utterly devastated by lightning striking it and burning it away. But all the trees He waters and feeds with fertilizer and the Sun. Even the devastated ones. There are even some trees who’re kind of ugly at first glance, the exterior isn’t beautiful. But God sees the inner most and just under the surface. He sometimes finds something more precious than Gold itself. He sees the self of the tree He, Himself formed from the beginning, He sees the seed as it found its way into the ground before it died and brought forth life. This seed, this self before the tree began it’s life He knew, and talked too, and nurtured before it took to ground. The seed eventually jumped from his hand to the soil it was to be planted in. And a tree began. The soil of this tree may have been without nutrients, or without much sun, or been bent over to the ground without the necessary straightening. At times God will take a seed from a dead tree that has been planted in bad soil and allow it to fall into the ground upon nutrient soil, die again, and sprout up with more attention and care, even as the tree itself asks for and needs. This tree born again of this good soil that God Himself picked out for the tree and tended in its season. This tree finding His attention had at some point decided it wanted new life. And instead of jumping from the hand it came from into the dirt. It allowed itself to be placed their by the Gardener. The tree in it’s season of ruin before it was re-born, called out to the gardener, and the gardener came and took it’s seed to the new soil. The seed this time had learned not to jump out of the hand of the God. It simply knew that the hand was good, and that trusting this hand would lead to it’s flourishing in time.

Our Roots. We’re born into this world from a seed. This seed is tended to by parents, by friends, teachers, loved ones, relatives, and more. The soil is the environment developed by these people. They either put forth a loving environment or a spite filled one. This is where nutrients comes into play. The seed finds it’s nutrients in the environment. It knows not the ground it’s in, just that it’s there and that it doesn’t know except that which it’s been informed of. So the seed jumps to the thing in the environment of the soil that appeals to it. Sometimes this is really good, sometimes this is really bad. The seed dies, and begins to form it’s tree once it begins to take in the soil around it. This is the first death. The point where the environment dictates the who of the tree. Sometimes the environment points towards the Gardener early, and sometimes never, sometimes late. The Gardener Loves all the trees, even the broken and decrepit ones. The ugly ones, the pretty ones, the big and small, new and old. He loves them all. Now as time progresses without the Gardener being pointed at. The tree tries to take in soil the gardener never intended for the tree. It keeps feeding itself on the environment of the soil it wasn’t intended for. So the tree gradually looses it’s ability to bring forth leaves, or the leaves become shriveled and dry. The Gardener usually has some pity on this tree knowing it needs new soil in which to find itself. But the tree has taken so much of the bad soil it needs to be born again. It needs to find itself the ground originally intended for the tree itself. So the Gardener lifts the seed of the tree, a new creation formed from the failure of the past and the tree humbly allows the Gardener to find it new soil. The soil upon the second death is the word of God. This is the good soil. This soil brings nutrients the the seed it, never knew, or never knew it needed. This soil doesn’t always taste all that great to the new seed. It’s sometimes bitter as it remembers some of it’s old life as a dead tree. If the tree keeps itself rooted in the Word of God, even in it’s bitter beginnings. The seed eventually finds the bitterness fade. The bitterness is only for a season or so. Sometimes the seed likes the old life and finds that more appealing. If this happens the seed must go through another death and be planted into the good soil again, and again until it realizes the need for the good soil. As time progresses the Good soil can become warped, and if that is the case the Gardener will abandon the now warped soil until a time when it may be cleansed and maybe even the seed if the seed doesn’t want to take the Good soil in as it’s nutrients. The seed does have a choice to search out the bad soil after all. If the seed keeps searching for Good soil the Gardener will not abandon it to bad soil. He will always take them back as his own and love them like they’re his favorite tree. He is a tender and loving Gardener after all. As the tree finds root in Good soil it begins to sprout, from the ground and the world around it looks different from the first time. The sprout notices it’s much stronger than it was in bad soil, it notices it has more communication with the Gardener than it had before. It notices the Gardener has as a way about Him that the tree wants to imitate. It has trouble relating itself to the Gardener and hasn’t realized the old tree(self) it clings to is no more if the tree so chooses. But at this point the sprout is very susceptible to influence from bad soil and negative environments that try and drag it back to it’s old self. So at times the Gardener will uproot the tree and plant it in good soil by itself away from influence. So that all it has is the good soil and the Gardener to rely on. This is known as the wilderness season. The season where you’re not sure what is up, what is down, where is God’s voice, what is He saying, and what does He say about you? What would he like you to do? This is the point where you literally cling to Him with all your might until you recognize His voice. It’s both fun and terrifying at the same time. You’re going to want to run away from Him. He’s going to understand and He’s going to welcome you back with open arms. This is where multiple things of the old self must die. He’s going to keep planting you back into good soil, but every time He does, you get to grow back up to the point you were before you failed the last time, the parts of the old self burned away in a fire somewhere. The renewed self finding root in Him, His ways, His Love. All soil upon this earth is corrupted, the only soil where you find an everlasting life is the Word of God. What you discover over time is that everything in life is subject to His word. Everything.

The season in the wilderness is building the mind into the person/tree God says you are. So as you sprout forth a new creation He tends to you with gentle rain, sun, talking with you, as you both build out the person He intended for you. The new creation doesn’t quite know what’s up or down. It really is a child at best. It will continually try and drag up the past and bring it into the new self. This is natural, and this process takes time, it’s frustrating for both God and you. And He is so, so patient. He usually looks at you like, okay, we can do this, but you’re not going to like where it ends. In the end you only survive by clinging. Everything else is death.
 

The humbling of the self takes place in this season. Things you used to like burn away like fire if you let them. The new tree(you) isn’t someone you’re used too. Nor is the tree(you) someone you’re familiar with. He doesn’t walk like you, he doesn’t talk like you, he doesn’t have the same belief systems. You stop swearing, you stop wanting for pleasures of self indulgence. You’re a new creation. The old one passed away…

The tree that forms should present to the world as whatever the exterior becomes. Both the interior and exterior become something beautiful. You love everyone like they were all children of God and you come to realizations about the reality of things people can’t see in so much that you learn to forgive everyone even yourself. The reformation is the embodiment of God Himself in you. The new you taking on the mantle of Jesus. With the realization that His authority comes before your own, in pretty much everything.

From sprout to full blown tree. While this tree never stops growing, learning and so on. It finds times where the Gardener must be allowed to clip off dead branches as it grows. This can be painful, and sometimes for the Gardener to clip off if the tree is holding onto that that dead branch. This “holding onto” makes the Gardener a bit sad as this dead branch is hurting the tree and it’s progress toward fullness. As the tree allows the removal of the dead parts the Gardener is able to add more nutrients to the tree to help it flourish. This is a lifetime affair, and as the tree flourishes the Gardener can enable more of it to root. As the tree grows the Gardener may graft on a branch from another tree to teach the other tree how to fruit like you do. Once the branch of the other tree has learned from the example of the tree in good soil, the branch is returned to the other tree so it may learn to flourish.

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The full blown tree, while the tree does still learn, it has a beauty to it that is unique to the tree itself. It has established itself in the garden as a permanent fixture. It’s well rooted, It knows the fruit the Gardener likes and produces it for the Gardener when the Gardener requests it. The tree in it’s full blown state is like a beacon to other trees in the area that they too should form the same relationship with the Gardener that this tree has. It’s fruit taste like it was meant too. It’s glow is a beacon to the Garden itself. And the Gardener and the tree find each others company relatively inseparable, joyous and exploratory.

 

Back to the root. Some trees in the garden become like bent posts with their leaves pointed into the ground. This usually isn’t easily corrected. Because, light has a very hard time getting to the leaves trying to work their way down into the earth. This leads to a lot of pain for this tree, it suffers needlessly not realizing the necessity for a death to seed transformation where it may find good soil. The Gardener again very sad to see such a tree continues to wait for a seed to surface that He might pluck it and place it into good soil. Roots are our pointed hearts. The things we point them towards. love or hate. And how we apply that love throughout our lives. If that love finds root in itself the tree bends, and brings its leaves towards the ground. The more we sin the more pointed it becomes until the light in it is relatively snuffed out. Now sometimes. Light will come into the ground and pull the tree from its dark place. The Gardener will see this and attempt to pluck a seed from the tree trying upright itself that it might be reborn. This is usually in the form of repentance, but may also take the form of forgiveness, or reading or hearing the word. The root is the consumer, the part that looks upon the world with the desires of the eyes, not knowing Godly desires. When the root starts out it’s usually around a family of trees. That family may seek the face of God, they may not. If it’s the latter option they may have some trouble getting enough nutrients to get started in life.

 

The Gardener is always there. He’s by every tree simultaneously He never stops feeding them water if they want, or nutrients if they want. But, He always allows the tree itself to take in the nutrients the tree wants. As the tree begins to sprout towards the sky the Gardener checks the sprout for imperfections. In it’s nature. The Gardener doesn’t think less of the tree for it’s imperfections, infact it Loves the tree all the same. But the Gardener can’t have an imperfect tree that doesn’t know who the Gardener is in the garden, where He makes perfect His trees. So once the Tree knows the Gardener though. Things change though when the tree recognizes the Gardener and submits to the nutrients of Him and His watering can. The Gardener then takes the tree and transplants it in the garden where He makes perfect His trees. This making perfect is generally done by grafting the tree to himself and allowing the tree to grow its roots from nutrients in the Gardener Himself. Once this is done for sometime, the tree may choose to stay a while longer, find another tree to be grafted too, or look for some nutrients that stunts the growth of the tree itself. If the tree continues to look for nutrients not from the Gardener, the Gardener may find Himself in the sorrow of having to remove the tree from Himself and plant it in soil like that of which the tree had sought while on the Gardener. This sorrowful event usually doesn’t last forever though as eventually the tree may come to recognize the nutrients it is getting isn’t from the source that sustains it. This tree while it dries up in the desert of it’s own making can choose to come back to the Gardener and His place of perfecting. Or the tree may choose to remain in the desert. The tree will despair in the desert. The worst thing that can happen is that it forgets the Gardener. This usually results in an eternal despair. The Gardener in this instance usually finds Himself in his deepest sadness in this case. He knows the tree will not seek Him anymore and knows the tree has found itself in a place of no return. He waits for the day the tree may call out to Him again before it’s too late. Sometimes if the Gardener is lucky He finds another tree willing to go into the land where the Gardener won’t. In this way the Gardener sends a piece of Himself with the other tree to the land where the Gardener won’t. This other tree Has been tasked with trying to pull the original back to recognizing the Gardeners nutrients, and feeds the original bread crumbs of the Gardeners nutrients to coax the tree back to seeking the Gardener and His nutrients. This is a process and the other tree is usually attacked a bunch by different things. So it has a hard time fighting off all the things that keep trying to spread bad nutrients around. If the original tree will not accept the Gardener’s nutrients coming from the other tree it will die. And this brings tears to the Gardener that loves it, even in it’s state of devastation. This level of sorrow from the Gardener may not be comprehended as if the tree ever knew it would ignite as firewood and burn forever more.

However. If the tree has chosen to stay with the Gardener and His nutrients the tree grows from sapling to a young tree. This aging enables the tree some ability to spread nutrients like the Gardener around. Not a lot. But some. It is painstakingly confusing for the tree as the tree can’t seem to locate it’s source. The tree still gets it’s nutrients from the Gardener. That’s always happening. But the tree feels both alone and in company with the Gardener. The feeling in company part really helps the tree stay rooted to the nutrients it needs. This in company feeling tends to fade if the tree finds nutrients only from somewhere else. This causes the tree to become confused for a time. It still receives some limited nutrients from the Gardener but also feels more alone as time progresses It’s stuck trying on different forms of nutrients all designed to hurt it. This stage causes the tree to wilt a bit and some branches start falling off. But if the tree realizes it’s mistake it returns to the source of the good nutrients.