A Living Tree

I cried to God to hear Him and He showed me a tree.

The tree was flowering. It had beautiful magenta flowers.

I have passed the spot many times, but this was the first time I noticed it.

And it was abuzz with life.

A little yellow bird, with a beak that looks like a hummingbird's but not with its hovering capabilities. Instead it had to perch on a branch to reach the nectar within the flowers.

Then there were at least five big, fat, black bumble bees darting from flower to flower. And there was also the odd butterfly coming in and out of sight from between the dense canopy of leaves that made the tree.

And there are wasps and other tiny flying insects too small for the eye to discern.

But you know these tiny flying things were insects and not drifting dust, as their zipping through the leaves, branches and flowers, can be attributed with purpose and will.

And I think the wasp was trying to find a home amongst the green tender branches. And I am sure that there are ants, beetles, worms and many other kinds of life all over the tree that I cannot see.

So the tree is a home and gives food to a multitude and a myriad of birds and insects and other plants too.

The tree, unmoving and silent, but yet giving shade, beauty and life to man and animals.

And for this species of tree, it is most pleasurable to see when it is in full bloom. For then the whole tree seems to be nothing but flowers.

And it was only one tree in the midst of a clump of them, of various species.

I realised the tree was there as it was planted by men.

It was planted amongst the other trees, evenly-spaced and in rows, but then you hardly notice this 'design' of men any longer, for the life of the tree overwhelms the scene. The fact that it could not be there, if not for the works of men, seems irrelevant. Rather the vitality of the tree seems to demand its very existence, and that it was not men who made the tree happen, but the tree that made men plant it there.

The scene reaffirmed a thought I had earlier when I was watching monkeys play in a huge tree at a reservior. And this was that some of us are to be like trees: silent, strong, unassuming, giving shelter, food, and comfort to others: many others and of all kinds. Whereas some of us are like the monkeys, the birds, the butterflies and the bees: active, moving, eye-catching, and seemingly life itself. But really life requires both, and life is not what it seems to be.

I do not know the full message in this sight, but what I know is that it took away the pain and the cry in my heart, and took my spirit into a flight of beauty and life. I was comforted, I forgot the pain, and I am able to take delight in God and His creation.

And as I stood and watch, the more I see; and the more I see, the more I am rooted. For example I noticed the beauty of a branchful of large somewhat circular leaves, perfectly and symmetrically distributed along a row, seemingly floating in the air, and ending in a cluster of flowers in various stages of blossoming and decay.

But I cannot stay there the whole day and it was with some reluctance that I moved off eventually.

So like Job who never knew why God made him suffer - Job was never told about the 'politics' in heaven between God and Satan - but nonetheless was comforted when God showed him who God is and revealed to him God's power, perfection and majesty, in His creation, so was I comforted.

And although God did not answer me directly the thing that pains me, yet I was comforted, and revived to live life, and to take heart and hope in whatever little that I can do, and to be able to write this blog.