Trees of Righteousness

Isaiah 61:3 - "The oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord; that He might be glorified."

Trees of righteousness. Here's the Savior's mission verses in 1 and 2. I'm going to mourn in Zion. I'm repentant. I'm going to get beauty for ashes. I'm going to get oil of joy. I'm going to get the garment of praise. What does it result? It means that we become trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord. Now, other people... "I'm a little weak in my faith. But I can get shade under your tree. I can temporarily use your strength and shade to bless my life." The Savior says, "You're going to be the light of the world. You're going to be the salt of the earth. You're going to be leaven. Well, this is another one: trees of righteousness; the planting of the Lord.

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That's all from the Follow Him podcast this week with Dr. Ross Baron. It was so good. I loved his conversion story at the beginning of Part 1, and also his testimony at the end of part 2. They also mention the verse above at 27:11 in Part 2. Then starting at 31:30 I loved what they shared about trees as a symbol: 

Trees always grow toward the light. 

Trees require opposition to thrive. 

Trees bear fruit. 

Trees provide shade. 

Trees point upward. 

Trees use the power of the sun to provide oxygen for life

Trees are best grown in forests, not in isolation. 

Trees draw strength from previous generations of trees. 

They mention a talk given by Elder Marlin K. Jensen where he discussed the sacred grove. He mentioned a story of when someone in the church has this idea to clean out the sacred grove in New York, to get rid of all the fallen trees, and clean out the grove so visitors can have nice clean pathways. They did. It started to create havoc in the grove. It actually diminished the vitality of what was going on in the sacred grove. Then some arborists came along and were like, "Well, yeah. You can't do that. Why would you do that?" "We wanted to clean it up" "No, no, no, no. The previous generation of trees that have died actually provide rich, rich nutrition and growth for these younger trees."