Psalm 52:8-9 “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.”
Have you been thrown a few torpedoes in your life this week? Or maybe you have a friend or loved one that has? Do you feel that you are caught in a maze and can’t find the correct way out? Is everyone counting on you to hold it all together and you don’t think you can take anymore today? Do you need a hug? Or a pat-pat? Or are you looking for someone to ask you how you are doing? Maybe you need to feel someone’s smile looking straight into your eyes, and you need to have them tell you that all is going to work out? Do you feel all alone? I sometimes have.
I have a close friend that has had a whole week of bombs going off while trying to do right. I had that myself a few weeks ago. I had some temporary physical issues and then two separate large problems that happened in my job all in the same week. Both were out of my control. In the first dilemma, I was dealing with intense pain in my lower back; I wanted my mother. That brought a smile to my face. At my age I still wanted my mother’s arms around me in a hug when I felt hurt or pain. We, women, give comfort. Mothers provide support and comfort to their children. That is what we do. But life’s boomerangs are distractions sent to us by the enemy. That is what disrupts, detracts, disintegrates, detonates, and deceives us away from focusing on God’s providence in our life. The enemy wants to make us feel stupid, inadequate, dumb and feel like a complete failure. He wants to keep us in a defeated mode. He wins when we give up.
In my problem with work, I felt insufficient to know how to solve a problem that had arisen with a major customer. It was an entirely new problem I had never experienced in the twenty-four years of my career before. I did not know what the right answer was or what I should do. It took three days to figure out a resolution. I needed wisdom from God and He supplied my need.
The enemy wants to distract us from God’s purpose in our life. But we cannot give up. Our heavenly Father dearly loves us and He is waiting for us only to trust Him as He is growing us, stretching us, and always teaching us a lesson about something. I, and my fellow sales people at my work learned something new, from the problem that occurred in my industry. When I went through the set back with my back, I learned about having severe arthritis, that I had not known fully before. The question then is not why, but what questions: Example: God what do you want me to learn? What can I do better in the future? Each and every new problem I encounter in my job enables me to be a better contribution to my company. Every trial I go through gives me more empathy for anyone else experiencing a similar situation. Problems teach. Successes don’t.
David felt that way too as he said in Psalm 52, as he compared himself to a green olive tree. It takes five years for olive trees to produce their first fruit. They look majestic in their gnarled and twisted trunks and evergreen tops. Olive trees grow to about 18-20 feet in height with contorted trunks and numerous branches. Some grow from 2,000 year-old-root systems. It takes up to fifteen years to produce a good first harvest of olives. The trees have to be shaken to harvest the fruit. The fruit falls to the ground and is then crushed and pressed. So are we shaken, crushed and broken, in the wait, and pushed to our limit, just like an olive tree. Stress takes hold, but for a good reason. Fruit will be the outcome.
The olive tree can withstand and thrive in any weather condition and still produce its fruit. Intense heat and a minimum of water do not stunt their growth. In Israel, the olive tree withstands the extreme east wind heat from the desert and the west wind from the Mediterranean that brings much rain. It needs both to grow –intense heat and much rain. So must I be able to survive in any pressing circumstance and have passionate patience while in a crisis while enduring the chaos of the moment. Do you have chaos too? I must be steadfast in my faith and trust that God has this, and I am in His presence. I have to trust Him that I will come out better and not be bitter in the process. I have to believe and know that I will grow not only in bad times, that will in the end, turn into enrichment and blessings. Endurance, perseverance, trusting God as my overseer, and gaining more courage are the rewards, and God will be glorified.
Even when cut down or burned, shoots grow back on an olive tree. It is stubborn but not in a bad way! I must be stubborn in not giving up and not get depressed with self-guilt, shame, frustration, and feeling worthless and stupid over bad decisions and mistakes that are my torpedoes in life. The right solution just has to be figured out to move forward.
Are you feeling dismayed? Defeated? Discouraged? Disappointed? Be like a green olive tree and trust in God to pull you through. Be steadfast, stand firm, have passionate patience, have endurance, don’t give up. Satan is trying to disrupt, detract, and deceive you from what God wants to accomplish in your life in your obedience to Him and the path He has chosen just for you.
David also said in Psalm 27:14: “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD! Then David said it again in Psalm 52:8-9: “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.”
Listen to Casting Crowns “Just Be Held.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZitK6_IMQ