Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17:5-8 both contrast what it is to flourish in the Lord and His righteousness and what it is to be led otherwise using the depiction of trees/greenery. To flourish means to be in a vigorous state; thrive. Psalm 6 is the perfect depiction of a languishing spirit. To languish means to be or become weak or feeble; droop; fade. John 10:10 promises that the Lord gives life abundantly (and our enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy). So it is important for us to take regular inventory of our spiritual growth. Are we experiencing flourishing and abundance in our spiritual lives or do we relate more with the languishing soul in Psalm 6? How do we even begin to take inventory? We can tell overall by answering those questions above, but how do we go deeper and see what exactly we need?
3 John 1:2 emphasizes our souls prospering and everything else will prosper as our souls prosper. We have a starting point! The Word of God is our bread of life (Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4). This concept is emphasized at least 3 times, so let us go to the Word for our inventory!
Since the Word uses trees to depict flourishing, we should see what type of fruit we should be producing. Galatians 5:22-23 lays out the specific fruit we as believers should be producing, the fruit of the Spirit: ONE fruit with different attributes. How are we doing with our long-suffering, gentleness, self-control, etc? Not so good? That’s what we need to work on! How are we doing with our love? Check out the love checklist in 1 Corinthians 13!
Ladies this is more than a devotional. This is a challenge to check our spiritual inventory! Remember, dying trees either produce no fruit or bad fruit (Galatians 5:19-21;26), and Jesus cursed the tree that didn’t produce what He expected in ALL seasons (Mark 11:12-14) just like the tree in Jeremiah 17:8.