It is a story about life: bushes and trees that are always green, yet continually going through a cycle of renewal.

There are a variety of evergreens in our yard. Several are bushes. Some form a line across the front of our house and three others we planted along a line between ours and the neighbor’s yard.  Over the past few years we have planted two pine trees in our backyard. One of the trees is almost twelve feet tall. The second is one that we planted as a sprout; it is still less than three feet tall.  All of these bushes and trees have in common: even though their shades vary, they are always green and, secondly, they always have the stickiness of oozing sap.

It doesn’t matter if the evergreens are fighting off a cold covering of snow in the winter or enjoying the freshness of a sunny spring day, the green hues and the sap of life are present. There are a couple of other bushes in our yard, but they are not always green.  During the winter months they are brown, without leaves or any other sign of life.  And, even though we know these trees and the brown lilac bush are still alive, it is the evergreens that always look like they are alive.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of these evergreens when I read a simile developed by the Psalmist concerning the righteous:
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 
They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. 
They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, 
to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.  (Psalm 92:12–15, ESV).

Above my desk there is a small picture painted by Charles ‘Chuck’ Cherry: my friend, bother-in-Christ, and partner in ministry. The scenery includes a plowed pathway with fading footprints through deep snow that continue up a hillside.  As the path continues into the background, it divides a forest of dark green pine trees.  The contrast is what has always captured my attention – between death and life. In the foreground of the picture there is a tree/bush that is brown and without leaves.  The picture presents me with the challenge of moving beyond that which is bland and lifeless, though the travails of deep snow and into the foggy background where one is presented with the flourishing pines that “are ever full of sap and green.”

As I was mowing the yard for the first time this year, It was hard not to notice all of the new growth on the pine trees. Though the trees remained green through the harsh, northern Illinois winter, they too were experiencing a time of new growth and renewal.  Without renewal and growth life soon comes to an end.  The same principle is true in our spiritual lives.  If we are not constantly growing, we are dying; if we are not bearing good fruit, we are not a healthy branch of the vine and pruning is needed.

Even those who always seem to be exhibiting the signs of life through the harshest experiences and trials need a time of refreshment.  My dear friend, Cecil Enlow, was truly a righteous man of God.  He was still bearing much fruit in his old age.  He was a man of the Word; he could respond to any subject you might present by quoting from the Bible.  Yet, when you entered his home you would see Christian magazines and Sunday-school books on the table next to his chair.  A prayer list was always present for his frequent ventures before the throne of God to present his intercessions and thanksgiving.  He was always “full of sap and green.”

It what way are you making sure that you are continuing to grow? What ‘disciplines’ are you utilizing (prayer, fasting, solitude, meditation, devotional reading, etc.) to “train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7)?  Is it time to strive to bear the signs of life?  Paul would write to the Christians at Rome, “…to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6, ESV). On what have you set your mind?