On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. –Revelation 22:2b, NIV 2010
Today, I decided to devote myself to heal what’s broken in my heart BEFORE I’d even try to help others heal. I even discovered that the Greek word for “healing” is the same word for “therapy”; not the one that involves a chair, someone miserable and another one asking rhetorical questions), but the one that involves a “specific medical service”.
When Ezekiel saw the vision of the river from the temple, it portrayed deep, running waters and abundant trees on either side of the river banks. Those running waters were so powerful, they would even turn the Dead Sea (so salty that no vegetation or nothing alive could even live there) into sweet water. Trees will bear fruit, and leaves will never wither. The only thing that wouldn’t be sweetened, however, are swamps and marshes.
When John saw the New Jerusalem, it portrayed a restoration of the beginning of Eden. The tree of life-so heavily guarded by God after man sinned- was now in the center, bearing twelve different fruit for twelve different months, bearing healing, hope, and blessing for the nations who want to eat from it. There would always be a river flowing around it, and the throne of God would be near it.
Can that river run through and sweeten those bitter and thirsty lives?
Can that fruit eaten by the tree of life restore hungry and parched lives?
I still believe in a God of healing, inside AND out. Sometimes, miracles don’t happen because of lack of faith (though it plays a major part); maybe we haven’t let God heal us in the inside yet. Maybe God hasn’t purged and ordered what needs to be dutifully ordered.
How willing are we? He is…waiting…He wants you free…