Like a willow

Today has me thinking again about willows. Even though the one in our backyard is gone, I miss it and secretly hope the landscapers missed a root or two and it will come back. It was a lush and flourishing tree, even though it was taking over the yard — and perhaps the water pipes under the yard.

Willows love water. In fact, willows cannot exist without water. That is where they grow. If one was planted on a mountain or in the desert, it would soon perish. As today’s devotional reading says, if you take even a twig off a willow and plant it near a stream, it very likely will grow. (That is what I’m hoping happens to my willow.)

The devotional refers once more to Isaiah 44:4: “They will spring up among the grass Like willows by the watercourses” and points out that this is the same with God’s children. Like a willow, I also must stay near the river of God’s blessing and dip my roots into that “river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God” (Psalm 46:4).

I cannot live in this world apart from the outpouring rivers of grace God gives through Jesus, the Holy Spirit, His Word, even His people, no more than a willow can thrive and grow in a desert. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says it well:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

The willow is an enduring plant. It tends to survive even when severely pruned. It is as Job says: “For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease. Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant. (Job 14:7-9)

This is true also of the life of Christ in me. This life is so strong that no matter how far I stray, or how low I am beaten down by adversity, at the mere “scent of water” I am revived and brought out of all backsliding and all attacks against me. How fitting that God’s Word should compare the life of His people to a willow. Blessed indeed is the person who trusts in the Lord.