Our Faithful GodExemplo

A Glorious Plan

I always hated that unsightly dead tree next to our front porch in Uganda. It was there in its ugly blue plastic container when we moved in, and its roots had grown so far down into the cement foundation of our house that I couldn’t dig it up.

Even worse was the fact that every one of my children and nearly every guest who wandered in and out of our home seemed to think that the plastic container holding the tree was actually a trash can. For the first full year we lived in that house, that ugly dead tree sat in its ugly garbage-can container full of banana peels and candy wrappers and half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches and drove me crazy.

I didn’t initially notice when fresh leaves started sprouting. I didn’t notice as the branches started to come back to life, reaching for the sun. And then one morning, I walked out and there was our dead tree—completely alive and completely covered with lit­tle pink mulberries. I ran to get the kids, excited to show them.

“This tree was totally dead!” I kept saying, shaking my head.

We waited patiently as the sour little berries turned into plump, juicy treats that stained our chins purple as we scarfed them by the handful. Eventually, the tree filled completely with berries several times a year.

The mulberry tree remained stuck in its ugly blue plastic container, its roots still growing straight through the bottom and into the cement, but sometimes I would pause to look at that tree for an extra minute and contemplate the mercy of God.

This is who our God is: He cre­ates everything out of nothing. Order out of chaos. Light out of darkness. He gives us “a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning” (Isaiah 61:3).

From the very beginning, God has had in mind this glorious plan—mercy. He will take my nothing, my chaos, my utter darkness, and He will breathe new life into things long dead. He resurrected my mulberry tree, and He is resurrecting me, both daily in my dark and sinful heart and one day in the life to come.

What places in your life and heart feel dead and dry, in need of God’s resurrection?