The Tree by the River

(Psalm 1)

Do you know what the happiest person in the world is like?

Not like a coin, or a crown, or the one who always wins.

The happiest person is like a tree.

A long time ago, a singer sang a song about two ways to live. And he sang it for you, too.

There was a dry leaf.
It had no roots at all.
It lay on the hard ground, brown and crackly and light as nothing.
And when the wind came, whoosh, it skittered away.
It could not hold on.
It had no home.
The wind decided where it went.

Maybe you have felt like that. Small and blown about, afraid you might just blow away and no one would even notice you were gone.

But the singer sang of someone else.

There was a tree.
And somebody planted it.
Somebody chose the spot. Somebody dug down deep and set it there on purpose, right beside the river, where the water never stops.
Long before, when the world was new, God planted a garden that same way, with a river running through it to water every tree. He has always loved planting things beside water.

And the tree drank.
All day. All night.
Even when no rain fell from the sky, the river was still there, slipping cool around its roots. I am here, said the river. Drink. I am here.

So the tree did not worry.
When the hot wind blew, it did not blow away.
When summer burned the hills brown and gold, its leaves stayed green.
And in its own good time, it grew fruit, sweet and heavy and ready to give away.

That is the happy one, the singer said.
Held and watered, rooted and glad.
Not because the tree was strong all by itself, but because of where it was planted. Because of the river.

And tucked inside the song, like a seed waiting in the ground, there was a secret.

There would come, one day, one true man.
Rooted deeper than anyone.
He would never wither, not in the dry places, not in the dark places, not even on the hardest, thirstiest day the world ever knew.
He drank from his Father the way a tree drinks from a river, and he stayed green when everything else went brown.

And when at last he came, he said:
I am the Vine. You are the branches.
Come. Be joined to me.
Let my life rise up into you, the way water rises up a root.

So if you have ever felt like a dry leaf, light and lonely and sure the next wind will carry you off, he is reaching for you even now.
He wants to plant you in himself, beside the river that never runs dry.
And held in him, you will not blow away.
You will grow. You will be green. You will, in your own good time, bear fruit you could never grow alone.

Down by that river there is still soft ground on the bank, and room for one more tree. It is your spot. Somebody chose it on purpose.