Dead Or Alive

Today I went on a beautiful walk in the countryside with a friend of mine.  We had her dog with us who was happily running up and down the pathway.  We walked past a field of sheep and crossed a bridge over a narrow river.  The sun was shining; it was truly a beautiful day.  As we walked along, a particular tree caught my attention.  I remembered seeing this tree on past walks along this same route.

The tree seemed to be split and yet it was clearly one.  The right side of the tree displayed its leafy branches.  The left side, in contrast, displayed a few clumps of leaves here and there, but it was obviously without some life.  This tree was like this a year ago.  Therefore,  I was amazed that it had any life left, but as I said, the right side was thriving in beauty.

When I returned home after our walk, I could not get the image of the tree out of my mind.  The verse in Romans 6:11 came to my mind.  “Consider yourselves to be dead unto the power of sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  I thought to myself that our lives are not unlike the tree.  We come to know Jesus and we are made new, clean, forgiven of every sin.  Just as we had a choice to invite Jesus into our lives, we also have a daily choice to follow Him or not.  We can learn more of Him.  We can talk to Him.  We can learn to listen to and hear Him.  We can be like the side of the tree that’s full of life, bearing its leaves of luscious green beauty or we can be like the side of the tree that lives like it’s dead.  

Even though we have the Holy Spirit within us, we have the freedom to make the saddest of choices — the choice to ignore Him.  We can let the ungodly things of the world creep in and choke the spiritual life out of us or we can grow tall and strong and beautiful in Him.  What a lovely and very important choice we have to make.  We must make it daily.  

What kind of tree do we want to be?  As if we are dead or knowing that we are alive.