Tree of Life

I can be having the best day.

Work is great. Relationships, finances and health are all in tact. There is a pan of brownies in the oven. All seems right in my little world. And then BAM.

It hits me.

I'm not satisfied. And sometimes I honestly can't think of what would do the trick. Dinner with a friend? A talk with my mom or dad? Shopping? A long run (hahahaha)? Then I start to daydream. I think about traveling. Listen to my favorite music. Go on a drive. Go to Target. Buy an ice cream maker. This happens more than I'd like to admit.

I listened to a sermon by Tim Keller a few weeks ago that has stayed with me. He does an excellent job of explaining my search for satisfaction, and hopefully my brief synopsis can do it justice.

You see, it all goes back to the tree of life. Paradise. We had it. Then we lost it. This tree is discussed in Genesis, Proverbs and Revelation, and it represents fullness of life; satisfaction of all desires- creative, physical, emotional. We lost all of it when we turned to be our own masters.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but longing fulfilled is the tree of life."- Proverbs 13:12

The tree of life is what we're really looking for in everything we do (job, vacation, things that promise joy). It is an image of irretrievable loss and cosmic nostalgia. We remember what we've never had.

"Our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something from the universe in which we now feel cut off, is no mere neurotic fantasy, but the truest index of our real situation."- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

The tree of life.

In the Garden of Eden, God says to Adam, "Obey me about the tree and you will live."

In the Garden of Gethsemane, God says to the second Adam, "Obey me about the tree and you will be crushed." Christ turned the tree of death into the tree of life for us. 


Christ is our satisfaction. 

Every time I search for pretty bedspreads on Pinterest. Every time I watch the Travel Channel. Every time I listen to that song that just makes my heart jump. I'm really aching for paradise. For Christ.

This perspective has allowed me to see things as they really are- that all of my hopes and desires are really something deeper. It has also made me evaluate where my hope truly lies. Is my hope in dainty cups and saucers from Anthopologie? They won't last. The dream job? There will always be something better. That trip to Ireland? It will come to an end.

I'm so thankful for the things and people I can enjoy on earth. But I hope I'm never completely satisfied with them. I want longing fulfilled. I want the Tree of Life.