It’s hard to see the forest through the trees. How true is that in our lives? We get so caught up in our personal strife that the trees seem as if they are all there is. Sometimes these trees are a sudden illness or a financial struggle, which appear like huge redwood trees in the middle of the road. But they are still not the forest all around us.
Our Christian faith speaks of the forest around us—a reality far richer, more beautiful, stranger, and more mysterious than we can imagine or give it credit for. Encompassing this greater reality is the love of Jesus, who hung upon a tree to give us God’s love and hope in the midst of our own life trees.
Ephesians chapter one reminds us of this: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
Reading this is like getting on a helicopter and flying above the landscape for a few hours while catching a glimpse of the greater picture of our lives. From that bird’s eye view, we see it is God’s love in Jesus that is the greater story we live in and the one that gives everything else meaning.
Encouraged by this new perspective, we can go back into the trees, not only seeing them in front of us but now with a greater view on how the love of God in Jesus is guiding us the way we should go.
When you read this passage and others from the Bible, be reminded of the greater reality of God’s love in Jesus ... even in the midst of the trees in your own life.
(Photo courtesy of morguefile and AngelaSJ.)
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Rev. Philip McClelland has been serving in ministry for nearly twenty years, from inner-city youth ministry to pastoral ministry. Philip lives in Northern Ohio with his wife and two children.