I love being in a forest! That's where I am this weekend!
I find it helpful to find a tree to meditate on, which I sometimes do when I go on prayer walks around the lake near my home. I look at a tree by the water and I pray Psalm 1...
"Blessed is the person who... delights in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He or she is like a tree planted by the stream of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he or she does prospers."
I want to be like that tree! Don't you? Rooted deep. Drawing up nourishment from the soil and the water. Leaves stretching out to catch the sun. Growing fruit.
To be a healthy, fruitful tree we need to meditate on God's Word, including his commandments that are holy and wholesome, good and gracious. This helps me learn to become the kind of person who obeys Jesus' teachings from my heart.
A person who is like this tree, like the Psalm 1 man, is rooted in God's love and defined by God's words of grace and truth and not by circumstances or what people say.
It's easy for us to be distressed by criticisms, rejections, and misunderstandings from people. But we can learn to be rooted in God's love. Meditating on God's Word is the way. And also to find at least one person you trust and respect who can be "Christ's Ambassador" to you, embodying Christ's love to you (1 Corinthians 5:20).
Have you ever meditated on a tree to root yourself in God?
What helps you tap into God's love such that you're not uprooted when people disappoint you?
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"What helps you tap into God's love such that you're not uprooted when people disappoint you"? by Dr. Bill Gaultiere
ReplyDeleteI am not able to always find solace in talking to God in distress. As an example, this weekend, my eldest daughter was married to a great fellow and almost all went terrificly. The couple were clearly happy. The day was gorgeous and my wife and I were able to set out a welcoming table and filled the garden with pink tulips for before and after the wedding.
My other daughter is engaged to a person who is angry much of the time and the past 3 weeks I was the target of his anger. He has not entered my house for that time staying in a car or outside and while accepting my hand at the close of his engagement party 3 weeks ago and at the end of the wedding of my other daughter this weekend, he refused to speak or acknowledge me and his taking of my hand was with obvious reluctance!
I am trying not to let this be the focus of all the positives of this past weekends wedding but my other daughter was also distressed I believe at her fiancés refusal to put aside his anger at this time.
Obviously, as I write this I am somewhat uprooted and all the prayers are not lifting me to the height of happiness which the marriage of my eldest daughter and new son-in-law might have brought me to!
I will hope and pray that the happy honeymoon of the happy couple will help me focus on the positive. I guess the incident forbodes a sad second wedding to come in 3 months and I guess that is causing me anxiety.
So, Dr Bill, I am sad and unable to tell you "What helps ( Me ) tap into God's love such that I am not uprooted when people disappoint me"?
I seem to care too much, and probably wrongly concentrate too much on how I might Fix what I perceive as a sad future marriage. I am not angry, I do not think, just sad for the angry guy and sad that the event was tainted.
Wish I could have written how well I handle this sort of thing rooted in God's love.
Jan-Michael
Jan-Michael, this is sad for you to have this tension with your future son-in-law. I can see how this would intrude on your joy over your other daughter's marriage.
ReplyDeleteTo be rooted in God's kingdom in the midst of a stress like this requires spending time watching and praying with Jesus prior to entering the situation. This means talking with Jesus about how you feel and taking heart from him so that your identity is formed in his grace and you are emotionally balanced by him.
This is learned with practice over time. Falling down again is part of learning how to walk!
So I prayed and the answer I percieved was to proceed positively with these words in my heart:
ReplyDeleteThe past is history and is best left behind us!
The future can and should be wonderful and thus anticipated joyfully!
The present is a gift of opportunity to shape a great future, leaving history as a lesson that is over!
I am going to make this a wonderful day!
Quote: "Have you ever meditated on a tree to root yourself in God?"
ReplyDeletePalm trees are cited many times in Scripture and one most striking referral I've met is in Psalms 92:12-14,
12 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,
One fails not to notice the palm trees that grace the beaches of the tropics. Natives call them "the tree that sustains life" because of its versatility to provide water, food, shelter and many other things.
In one of my travels to the Far East,I enquired a native botanist for the characteristics of this remarkable tree. He told me how resilient and impervious they are to the most devasting of hurricanes mainly because not only the trunk but the roots stretches and grows as the soil shudders from the violence giving the tree more grip and the power to right itself after the storm passes. As to its longevity, a palm tree can survive hundreds of years in normal conditions.
Now I see why God couldn't have chosen a better illustration than the palm tree to describe His own children.
Wilde