THE POWER OF STAYING GREEN

I was led to read and study Revelation 9, the chapter on the locusts. As I read verse 4, about God’s command to the locusts not to destroy anything green, a thought leaped out at me.

I realized that here was the key to remaining safe in any time of terror: “stay green.” David wrote, “I am like a green olive tree in the house of my God…for ever and ever” (Psalm 52:8).

The “green” that David refers to here signifies spiritual health. It means to flourish, grow, be fruitful. David is telling us, “My health comes from trusting God. I flourish because I turn to him. My trust in him produces spiritual life in me.”

Here is a glorious truth about the power of staying green. “Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited” (Jeremiah 17:5-6).

The Lord is warning, “Don’t trust in man. If you put your faith in human power rather than in me, you’ll be cursed.”

Yet, if we put our trust in the Lord, here is what our faith will produce: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit” (17:7-8).

As we trust wholly in the Father, we put down roots in his river of health. And his divine strength—luscious, green, spiritual health—flows in us and through us. While everything around us is decaying, we’ll flourish as green trees, healthy and strong. And when the hour of trial comes, we won’t languish or wilt. Instead, our faith will be growing.