Learning to Live Like Trees

As I write this post I am sitting under a canopy of trees in northern Wisconsin, where I am speaking at a weeklong family camp at Fort Wilderness. This is a very beautiful place that I have been privileged to return to regularly over the years, and it is always a joy to be here with people from many different church families and places.

In my teaching this week, I am exploring Psalm 1, which is one of my favorite portions of Scripture. I am encouraging us to learn how to “live like trees” of the sort described in this psalm. You likely know it, but let me insert Psalm 1 here.

¹ Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.
⁴ Not so the wicked!
    They are like chaff
    that the wind blows away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
⁶ For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

The tree described in Psalm 1 becomes a picture for the life with God, soaked in stability, redolent with fruitfulness, and graced ever-green. This is the sort of life we all want: full and flourishing, bursting with vibrance, overflowing with God’s goodness, and sending a canopy of goodness over others.

Even as I sit here it in this beautiful place pondering the life God has for us as towering, fruitful trees, it seems somehow ironic to have such turbulent events whip through the news headlines. There is much that is unsettling and confusing happening around us. It is difficult to process and ponder it all. Even as we try to consider it ourselves, there are many voices seeking to tell us how we should interpret and understand it all. Such whipping winds can leave us feeling tossed about by shifting gusts of various agendas.

What I notice about trees is that amidst all the whipping winds they continue to be rooted. Unhealthy trees either break because they are not healthy or are torn from the ground because their roots are not strong enough. Healthy, vibrant trees with strong roots sent deep into the earth bend but do not break. They are not rigid but flexible enough to sway with changing wind patterns. Concurrently, while flexible, healthy trees are held firm in place by deep, strong roots.

What might it be like for us to have both the flexibility and rootedness of trees amidst the whipping winds and changing patterns of the world around us? Could it be that we, too, could become like trees in our lives no matter the circumstances?

Psalm 1 gives us hints that such flexibility and strength comes from being planted in God, nourished by God’s word, and walking in God’s ways. There is a vitality that comes when our life is in God and God’s life is in us by faith. We are rooted and strong, yet we are also vital and flexible.

So may God give us grace to learn to live like trees.