~ Grafted Into The Tree Of Life ~
With permission, I share with you, this wonderful and unusual capture of a 'Heart in a Tree'. This tree is growing alongside the Shirley Langer Recreational Trail - the new eastern extension of the Bayshore Trail in Belleville. Thank you, Jeanette Arsenault, for this gorgeous shot and the information about its location! 💖
The natural heart shape formed by two curved limb divisions in the tree branches made the following scripture stand out strongly for me:
"For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?" Romans 11:24
Grafting tree branches into cultivated trees is not the natural way to grow trees. Likewise, it was not "natural" for God to do this act in order to offer salvation to the Gentiles, but that is precisely what He has done.
I believe you will agree that Jeanette's picture is not of an olive tree nor are the branches grafted on it to make that impressive heart shape. Yet the message I see depicted and held in the tree limbs brings still another way for me/us to focus on God's intense and true love for the Jewish people along with all people in the world/those grafted in when we follow Christ. For we are all God's children through Christ's death and resurrection.
Walk with me, please, my friends, back in time, over 2000 years back and into the garden of Gethsemane. To that very same garden and to the place where Jesus did come the night before his crucifixion. Into an olive garden whose name in Hebrew is called Gat Shemanim, meaning literally an 'oil press'.
In this olive Garden while contemplating His death on the Cross that Jesus set his will to that of His Father for the final sacrifice, his shed blood, which would provide the forgiveness of sins even for those who would be grafted in.
Can you imagine that vivid picture of Jesus' suffering from the weight of the sins of the world/ours like the olives when they are pressed down ... "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down on the ground" (Luke 22:44) ... flowing from him like olive oil as it was squeezed out and flowed into the pit of an olive press.
Into a place to be crushed, a place to be transformed that is where Jesus came.
As I close today, my mind goes to the lyrics for "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands". I sure do love the words of this traditional African-American spiritual!
I know that many of you, including Jeanette, will sing along with me and especially the 6th and 7th verses as they pertain to this Joy Journal blog post!
1. He's got the whole world in his hands.
He's got the whole world in his hands.
He's got the whole world in his hands.
He's got the whole world in his hands.
(Singing each verse 3xs ending with 'He's got the whole world in His hands')
2. He's got the wind and the rain in His hands...
He's got the whole world in His hands.
3. He's got the little tiny baby in His hands. . . .
He's got the whole world in His hands.
4. He's got you and me, brother, in His hands. . . .
He's got the whole world in His hands.
5. He's got you and me, sister, in His hands. . . .
He's got the whole world in His hands.
6. 'He's got the trees and the forests in His hands ...
He's got the whole world in His hands.
7. He's got everybody here in His hands. . . .
He's got the whole world in His hands.
Job 12:10
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RoseNaomi
Love how you and I see God's principles in nature. I used that spiritual in one of my stories as well.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Judy! A beautiful and simple song with such deep application and truth!
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