Throughout the Bible, people are described with botanical imagery—especially as trees. The human story begins in a garden with two trees: one leading to life, the other to death. Humanity is invited to the first, but chooses the second.
Psalm 1 brings us back into that garden and sets the choice before us again. There are still two ways to live. But now the invitation has deepened. We are not only called to eat from the tree of life—we are called to become it. As the translation of the first Psalm says:
“Like a tree planted by streams of water…”
The tree in this metaphor is you. Here, human life becomes the place where God’s life grows and takes shape. As the word of God works in us over time, something steady and organic begins to take shape—“ring on ring,” as God’s years mark their slow loops in us.
So, the journey of growth begins with being rooted in the right places. Then, as we live, God’s fruit grows in us.
