The two trees

Today I chose to read from the New Oxford Annotated Bible....Two trees.  Happy are we when we don't follow the advice of the "scoffer."  That seems strange to me as I read it because right now I cannot imagine taking the advice of someone who scoffs at my faith. However, they are all around me daily and some of them I really love.  I even understand their scoffing sometimes given what they might have seen from some Christians, including me at times.  Happy are those who don't go down that scoffing path. Because if you don't, if you delight in the Word of God (Jesus is the Word of God...John 1) and meditate on God's teachings day and night, you are like a well watered tree planted by a river.  Your ROOTS are connected to their nourishment in such a way that you are continually fed.  This tree has very green, luscious leaves that do not tend to fall off the vine and it yields fruit just when it is suppose to.  So knowing and loving God's Word is like being nourished from a flowing river.  It keeps me spiritually plump, green, ready to yield fruit at any given time.  In all this tree does it prospers. Oh, I want that.

Tree two.  The scoffers and the wicked.  Wicked is a pretty hard-core word. I would save it for Hitler or Idi Amin.  And maybe this IS about those who would use their power to destroy others.  That does go on on a smaller scale daily.  Scoffers I know about, though.  I am accustomed to hearing that I am stupid to believe the stuff about Christianity.  I must have to bypass my brains to believe in Jesus. However untrue this is, I have met some who do not even want an explanation for my faith because believing in Jesus would change forever the way they do things.  What keeps me by the river of life is that I know I cannot live again in a parched land without the continual life of the waters that flow from the stream into my existence.  I was meant for the river.  It is my life.  I would wither and die without the stream.  I would be like the scoffer.  They are chaff instead of a tree.  The wind blows them here and there.  They are simply nourished by the dry hot Saharan heat of their unbelief and blown God knows where (and He does) to finally perish from lack of a life source. 

The tree on the river bank is tall and green, leaves rustlling in the breeze, shining in the sun, reflecting the benevolent source of its life.  The desert tree is small, shriveled - a chaff-maker.  Unconnected to anything but dry sand, it has no hope for any length of life.  It is not cared for or tended to, but has chosen to go its own way determined to care for itself.  Its end is death.  Its road is destruction.  I want to give this tree some water.