A good friend and I went out for breakfast one day. After breakfast we were driving on a scenic highway and my friend wanted to go to a place called Fairchild Oak. It was a city park on the outskirts of the city. The main attraction was a very old live oak tree. The bronze plaque at the base of the tree states that it has gladdened man's heart for 2000 years. My friend who is approaching the 100-year-old mark is considered a young lad in comparison to the tree. He told me that once seven men tried to join hands around the tree without connecting hands. After researching the tree, it is considered to be 600 years old in factual terms. When the tree was a sapling, Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe and a man named John Wycliffe had just completed a transition of the bible to Middle English. If you are of European descent, then it was 20 generations ago and 2,099,150 ancestors from your family tree when the tree sprouted out of the ground to life. A Live Oak to live a very long time and to become the "TREE OF LIFE ".
The tree sits atop the banks of a knoll. The bottom of the knoll has water gushing out in a series of springs. The flow of water was constant even though it was the dry season and hadn't rained for a very long time. While there a hawk swooped down out of the tree and captured a small lizard. Thoughts of how many generations of hawks received provisions from the tree. The tree withstood countless years enduring storms, hurricanes, and lightning storms. The tree provided shelter for nesting birds for many centuries. It warded off many diseases for its entire life. Live Oaks produce sweet edible acorns that ducks, jays, quail, deer and many other animals feed on for survival. I wonder how many Amazon Facilities could have been filled with acorn assortments during the life of the tree. The tree is the backbone of its ecosystem.
My friend who has also lived a very long life in human terms also has endured very many storms, found shelter, resisted many diseases and was provided provisions of food all of his life.
The secret to his long life was that he was like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. He was sustained through the dry periods in life holding him firmly on the knoll. He spent most of his life of 75 years committed to a faithfulness of his savior Jesus Christ. He is now 20 generations later from the sprouting of the old tree, and reading his English translation of the bible every day has made him endure through the years. He is a good example of how Jesus gladdens a man's heart. Unlike a tree it is never too late for you to start forming roots by the stream in your life. You can begin by pruning the dead branches to give more life to the heartwood and form a new healthy crown. Bark up the right tree and develop a new cambium, but it all stems on your faithfulness and obedience in Jesus to flourish. Jesús is the vine, and you are its branches, and He is and always will be the backbone of your ecosystem.
GENESIS 2:9 ESV
And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
JEREMIAH 17:7-8 ESV
7. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord 8. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream, and doesn't when the heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and it is not anxious in the year of the drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.
PROVERBS 11:30 ESV
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and whoever captures souls is wise
PSALM 1:3 ESV
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
JOHN 15:5 ESV
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.