Sticks: Root Your Decisions in Godly Wisdomಮಾದರಿ

Reframing Your Perspective with Views from the Treetops

For the last twenty years, the Dallas Arboretum has been my sanctuary––my Eden. Tucked around White Rock Lake, right in the middle of the city, the magnificent garden is brimming with blooms. Somehow they manage to grow season-appropriate plants all year long in the most intricate, creative patterns. Everywhere you turn, the artistry takes your breath away. I can always count on my perspective shifting as I mosey through the arboretum.

Similarly, the last tree we will study together has the power to completely alter your perspective of your present circumstances. In Revelation, John has an encounter with God that lifts him into the heavenly realms with a vision of the future. With narrative imagery that has captivated Christians for centuries, the book of Revelation describes a symbolic world that centers the Tree of Life in a new, cosmic Garden City—a new Jerusalem. It is the same Tree of Life centered in the Garden of Eden from Genesis. Serving as bookends to the Holy Scriptures, both Genesis and Revelation hinge on a sacred tree. The Tree of Life is, again, a decision tree and a place where we must resolve ourselves with faithful determination to choose wise living.

John’s vision gives us an opportunity to decide if we want to live in this future city, washed by Christ’s blood, with access to the Tree of Life or if we want to die in our sins without access to our source of life. This new perspective John offers us about our future should impact our present. Although we continue to live in a broken, fallen world, we should live with our eyes on the horizon. Hope is up ahead. Even as we mourn the war, pain, and sickness of now, we rest within the truth that is not the end of the story.

Why is the Tree of Life available to human beings now after humanity becomes separated from it at the beginning of time? The answer lies with Jesus; he is the Tree of Life is for all who choose to follow Jesus. We are given the same choice Adam and Eve were given back in the Garden of Eden: Will we trust in our wisdom, or will we choose the life offered to us?

As I’ve studied Revelation 22 and the Tree of Life in the new Garden City, I’ve felt the same way I do when I see an Arboretum sunrise—hopeful and peaceful, knowing we have hope on our horizon. Soon enough, Jesus is coming back to set our world right. He’s going to complete what he started in the Garden of Eden, and he will be our Tree of Life in the Garden City. According to John’s vision in Revelation, when we live in the Garden City, we will experience what it was like to live in Eden, with the Tree of Life illuminating and sustaining us all.

Prayer: God, Because of you, eternal life in the Garden City is possible. Help me to fix my eyes on this hopeful future so that I can reflect you to the world until I see Jesus face to face. In Jesus’ name, Amen.