What You Need to Flourish

Scripture — Psalm 92:12-15 (NIV)

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the LORD,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, “The LORD is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

Devotion

In yesterday’s Life for Leaders devotion, we focused on the promise in Psalm 92:12: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon.” If we are in a right relationship with God and God’s creation, then we will live a full and fruitful life. We will experience the joy of living well while making a difference that matters, both for God and for our neighbor.

I concluded yesterday’s devotion by asking questions you may be asking as well. How can I be the sort of person who flourishes? How can I flourish like a palm tree and a cedar tree? How can I live fully, fruitfully, and faithfully?

There are many different ways to answer these questions, of course. But Psalm 92 provides one clear and relatively straightforward answer. It comes in verse 13: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.” Continuing with the tree imagery, the psalmist observes that those who flourish are “planted in the house of the Lord,” that is, in the Jewish temple.

What did this mean for the Jews who first heard this psalm? And what does this mean for us? The temple, for the Jewish people, was God’s house. It represented the presence of the Lord. One who was planted in the house of the Lord didn’t remain forever embedded in the actual temple courts. Rather, such a person was planted in the soil of God. This person had roots that grew deeply into God.

Psalm 92 echoes the affirmations of Psalm 1 about the person who is blessed. That person, according to the first psalm, “is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers” (Ps 1:3). Because the blessed have roots that grow deeply into God, they are fruitful, and what they produce doesn’t wither. In a word, they flourish.

So, we are now ready to answer the questions I asked earlier: How can I be the sort of person who flourishes? How can I flourish like a palm tree and a cedar tree? How can I live fully, fruitfully, and faithfully? All of this is possible, according to the psalms, if our roots grow deep into God, if we get our nourishment from God, if we are anchored in the bedrock of God. The key to flourishing isn’t, first of all, about us and our efforts. Rather, it’s about God and God’s efforts in and through us. If we desire to flourish, we must begin with our relationship with God.

This, by the way, is the essence of what it means to be righteous. When Psalm 92:12 says, “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,” we might hear this as saying, “The one who acts rightly will flourish.” To be sure, right actions do matter when it comes to flourishing. But righteousness in Scripture isn’t primarily a matter of good behavior. Rather, it’s about being in a right relationship with God, and—through God—with God’s creation, including both people and the earth. Such right-relatedness leads to right actions. It is also a prerequisite for flourishing.

Jesus made a similar point in John 15, using natural imagery related to but a bit different from the trees of the psalms. He talked about a vine and its branches:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. . . . Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing . . . . This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples (John 15:1, 4-5, 8).

Bearing much fruit is another way of speaking of flourishing. So what is necessary if we are to flourish in this way? We must remain in Jesus. (Other translations say we should “abide” in him.) We cannot flourish otherwise, because Jesus is the source of what we need for true flourishing.

Thus, whether drawing from the tree imagery of Psalm 92 or the branch imagery of John 15, we understand that our flourishing, or we might say, our fruitfulness, is a by-product of an intimate, deep, growing, strong relationship with the triune God. To put it bluntly, if you want to flourish in life, make your relationship with God your top priority. Discover how your roots can grow deeply into God’s soil. Learn what it means for you to remain or abide in Jesus so that you might bear much fruit, to the glory of God.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Here’s an Experiment: Frame Your Day With God’s Love and Faithfulness.