The Old Tree

Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the Lord made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. He said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

~Exodus 15:22-25

And there is healing in old trees.
—LORD BYRON

Moses and Israel had seen God triumph over the horse and its rider and bury the Egyptian army in the sea. They paused for a moment to sing the “Song of Redemption” (Exodus 15:1–18), then marched three days through the vast wasteland of Shur to an old oasis where they expected to find water.

There was water there, but it was bad water, and it left a bitter taste. God’s people began to mutter among themselves and murmur against Moses. “What are you going to do now?” they grumbled, “What are we going to drink?” Moses didn’t have a clue.

Then the Lord pointed out a tree to Moses—a rugged piece of wood that grew beside the oasis—and told Moses to throw it into the water, which he did, “and the water became sweet” (15:25).

Joy and sorrow are often juxtaposed. How quickly our enjoyment can turn into bitterness. One moment we’re singing the Song of Redemption, the next moment we’re crying the blues, complaining about our circumstances, muttering over our lot, and allowing the bitterness of the moment to seep into our souls.

The power of these foul moods is that they make the old self seem right in its insistence that we were made for ease and affluence and that present circumstances are depriving us of the good life. “It isn’t fair!” we complain, then sulk and pout. We grow more embittered and rancorous with every memory; we lapse into lethargy and depression.

There is, however, a tree which, when cast into our bitter waters, can make them sweet. It is

The cross on which the Savior died,
and conquer’d for his saints,
This is the tree by faith applied,
that sweetens all complaints.
—ALFRED NEVIN

The cross is that symbol of acceptance, our utter submission to the will of God. The cross means for us what it meant for Christ—to will one thing. As Jesus said when he willingly stretched himself out on his tree. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). This must be our attitude as well. This is what Paul calls “being conformed to his death” (Philippians 3:10).

F. B. Meyer has written, “It is in proportion as we see God’s will in the various events of life and surrender ourselves either to bear it or do it, that we shall find earth’s bitter circumstances becoming sweet and its hard things easy.”

It may be that our bitterness comes from a nagging illness, a difficult marriage, a carping critic that will not go away. It may come from regret and disappointment over what could have been, what would have been, if only someone had been less self-absorbed.

We can sweeten that bitterness if we choose to see each circumstance as God’s choice for us and willingly accept it—saying “yes” to him and to his will. He has chosen this difficult place for us; he has permitted this intrusion; it is his will that we are here. “Disappointment is his appointment,” someone has said. We too must see it that way.

The painful event may seem cruel and capricious, but it is not; it has been screened through infinite wisdom and love long before it ever got to us. It is not the ill-use of an adversary, but the gracious will of a loving Father and Friend.

Since he is good, God will not leave us in the lurch, nor will he ever forsake us. He will keep us in his love. He will teach us the lessons he intends us to learn. He will work in us the changes he wants us to make. He will give us the grace we need to be brave in the midst of our calamities and behave as his children should. And then in his good time—in this life or in the next—he will deliver us from evil.

And so, as F. B. Meyer says, we are here in this place, whatever it may be, “by [God’s] appointment, in his keeping, under his tutelage, for his time.” In this we must rest.

He said, “I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God tomorrow
Will to his son explain.”
Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.
Not vain the word: vain, vain;
For in acceptance lieth peace.
—AMY CARMICHAEL

Taken from In Quietness and Confidence, ©1999 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.