I'm starting to realize just how fast life can change. You're going along in your life, not expecting anything different to happen, not really even WANTING your routine shaken up, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, God hits you with a curveball. He throws something into your life that just totally shakes up your expectations of normality. His curveballs can be situations or people, good or bad, but the one thing that they all have in common is that you weren't expecting them. How do you deal when something blindsides you, something that you weren't expecting?
That's why I'm glad that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). He never changes. And yet, beautifully paradoxically, His mercies are "made new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22-23). His love and provision for us will never change, but the way He provides for our needs will change as our needs change.
I think that's one of the reason I love trees so much. Especially huge, old, wrinkled trees; trees that have stood guard to untold numbers of stories. Trees that give sparrows and squirrels rest in their branches, and little schoolchildren rest in their shade. Unlike God, they haven't always been there, but they've been around as long as we have.
But, although their existence in our lives has been constant, our needs and how they fill them have not. When we were young, we would crawl in their shade and sit in the carpet of leaves at their base. As we grew older, we started clambering up their branches, exploring our surroundings, searching for an ever higher view from which to see our world. They gave us fruit when we were hungry, and a willing tablet on which to write our love notes to our school crushes. Then, when we were older still, they held up our hammocks and let the wind whisper sweet nothings into our ears through their leaves as we again rested in their shade. Later on in life, perhaps they even served as a backdrop for the day that we married the love of our lives.
Old trees, to me, are a beautiful picture of who God is. He is always there for us, however we might need Him. Of course, our perception of our need may be very different from our reality. But He is there nonetheless. And when we call on Him, He will ALWAYS answer.
That's why I'm glad that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). He never changes. And yet, beautifully paradoxically, His mercies are "made new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22-23). His love and provision for us will never change, but the way He provides for our needs will change as our needs change.
I think that's one of the reason I love trees so much. Especially huge, old, wrinkled trees; trees that have stood guard to untold numbers of stories. Trees that give sparrows and squirrels rest in their branches, and little schoolchildren rest in their shade. Unlike God, they haven't always been there, but they've been around as long as we have.
But, although their existence in our lives has been constant, our needs and how they fill them have not. When we were young, we would crawl in their shade and sit in the carpet of leaves at their base. As we grew older, we started clambering up their branches, exploring our surroundings, searching for an ever higher view from which to see our world. They gave us fruit when we were hungry, and a willing tablet on which to write our love notes to our school crushes. Then, when we were older still, they held up our hammocks and let the wind whisper sweet nothings into our ears through their leaves as we again rested in their shade. Later on in life, perhaps they even served as a backdrop for the day that we married the love of our lives.
Old trees, to me, are a beautiful picture of who God is. He is always there for us, however we might need Him. Of course, our perception of our need may be very different from our reality. But He is there nonetheless. And when we call on Him, He will ALWAYS answer.
Ezekiel 17:22-24
22 “‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. 23 On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. 24 All the trees of the forest will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. “‘I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.’” 
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