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presentation
Q: How does everyone feel about the recent focus on "deserts of our own lives"?
Trees
1. Rotem Tree/Bush / Broom Tree
Represent in Scripture often when someone is about to give up.
1 Kings 19:4 (ESV)
4But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
Rotem trees don't necessarily grow in a "forest" or any kind, they are rare and singular
2. Shade as Refuge
Judges 9:15 (ESV)
15And the bramble said to the trees, ‘If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’
Psalm 80:10 (ESV)
10The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches.
Psalm 121:5 (ESV)
5The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
Song of Solomon 2:3 (ESV)
3As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Isaiah 4:6 (ESV)
6There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.
Isaiah 25:4–5 (ESV)
4For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
5like heat in a dry place. You subdue the noise of the foreigners; as heat by the shade of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is put down.
Q: Where do you go to find shade? Do you go to Egypt and Empire or to the Desert?