“The righteous
shall flourish like the palm tree…” (Psalm 92:12)
The verse above cannot be fully understood unless one
is somewhat acquainted with the palm tree. People who live in tropical and
semi-tropical areas like I do are quite familiar with the graceful towering
beauty of the palm tree. For us in Jamaica, they are found everywhere.
It is said that the normal life-span of a
palm tree can be up to 150 years. They are living memorials bearing witness to
the fact that the Lord is upright and faithful to His promises. The Bible tells us that He is our Rock and
that there is no unrighteousness in Him (Deuteronomy 32:4).
In a hurricane, buildings may fall, but the
palm tree flows with the wind. As
Christians, we should emulate the palm tree by ensuring that we are rooted and
grounded in Christ. Unfortunately, too many Christians are like the pine tree,
in that they are easily uprooted. In fact, some of you reading this little book
are pine trees – you are easily uprooted and you fall apart when faced with a
storm.
God often compares His people to trees, and
whenever He does, he usually selects the fruit-bearing palm to represent the
Spirit-filled believer. There is a divine reason for this – the palm tree is
full of sap. We read in Psalm 104:16 that “The trees of the Lord are full of
sap”; this is in reference to the palm. The very life of the tree is in the sap
that flows through the trunk and branches producing fruit and beauty. In like
manner, every fruit and gift of the Spirit must be fed and nourished by the
heavenly sap of the Holy Spirit.
The Palm tree is called the symbol of the
desert. The tree of the desert is a symbol of what God means the life of His
children in this world to be. We are to guide weary souls, full of unrest, and
ready to perish in the desert of sin, to the living water. We are to point our
fellow men to Him who gives the invitation, “If any man thirst, let him come to
Me, and drink” (John 7:37). Therefore, when John attempts to paint a picture of
the victorious children of God in Revelation 7:9, he says that they were
clothed with white robes, and [had] palms in their hands. Also, the Bible says
in Psalm 92:12 that “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall
grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”
In scripture, the palm is always the date palm, stately
and beautiful. It has an extremely deep tap root system called a root ball, and
can therefore flourish, grow tall, and live long even in the desert. In fact,
it is perhaps the most useful of all trees, not only producing dates, but also
sugar, wine, honey, oil, resin, rope, thread, tannin, and dyestuff. Its seeds
are fed to cattle and its leaves are used for roofs, fences, mats, and baskets.
Its fruit is said to get sweeter as the tree grows older, a quality that is
likened unto the believer in these beautiful verses written by the psalmist:
“Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of
our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and
flourishing” (Psalm 92:13-14).
Indeed, the palm tree displays numerous characteristics
that parallel the life of the Christian. However, we will only discuss seven of
these characteristics in this book.
“The righteous shall flourish like the palm
tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” (Psalm 92:12)
