TREE-PLANTER’S Rest

TREE-PLANTER’S REST

HEB. 4:9-11 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. ¶ Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

What a way to start a day, running laps until you actually throw up. Just when you think you are done someone quotes a scripture you had never hear before, Psa. 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. I was dying, not dying physically (though it felt like it), I was learning about dying to self. This was my Holy Ghost boot camp. One of our elders at the bible School was getting us physically prepared for our first tree planting trip. After all, our school was called God’s Army, we had to have a boot camp. The next week we found ourselves on the way up to the mountains of Oregon. We started with a few weeks of picking pine cones and then launched into our whole tree planting mode. We were camping in the mountains, several hours from any towns, and working on a reforestation project.
It was on the tree planting lines that I really learned this phrase, “enter in”, that our elders were teaching us. They taught about entering in, we shouted about entering in, we even sang about entering in. It wasn’t until I found myself coming to the end of myself in the tough working conditions that I finally began to get it. It was cold, it was miserably rainy, the food was bad, and the work was hard. We were climbing through mountains in the midst of quite rugged terrain planting thousands of trees. Depending on how bad the terrain was for the day I would plant between 700 and 2000 thousand trees a day.
In the midst of the most difficult conditions I had ever found myself in ( I remember asking The Lord to send me back to the chicken ranch) I began to learn what it meant to enter in. I actually found how to touch the edge of the spiritual realm through hard work. All I can compare it to is similar experiences fasting can bring on. Somehow, in the absence of our basic everyday pleasures, we find ourselves drawing near to God. Rather than being depressed, focusing on the peanut butter sandwiches for lunch or the miserable rain and cold, I found myself entering in. There was a place of joy in exhausting myself in labor. What was the key? I had learned to plant trees unto The Lord. It was simple, I was doing this for Him and I would do it with all my might, no matter what.
So, have you learned to “enter in”? It starts with having a God purpose in your life. Get connected with your local church. Get involved with the vision of your church, and go to work. You may not get paid in this life but if you learn to enter in, the rewards are staggering.