Cedar of Lebanon

Psalm 92

 

 

“Those who do what is right will grow like a palm tree.
    They will grow strong like a cedar tree in Lebanon”.        

Psalm 92:12 NIRV

 

The cedars of Lebanon that the Psalmist wrote about, lived to be 120 feet tall and up to 30 feet in circumference. They were solid and strong; an immovable object. Here, the psalmist is using them as a metaphor for spiritually influential people.

 

In 2003 Mitch Albom released a book by the title of, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”. It is a story about a man who dies at the age of 83 and goes to heaven where he meets five people whose lives were intertwined with his.

 

Each of us have people who have influenced us during our lives. Sometimes it has been in ways that we don’t even realize at the time, but God has used them to shape us and mold us to become the man or woman that we are today and will become in the future. They are the “cedars of Lebanon” in our lives.

 

Here is a brief summary of the five that come to mind for me:

 

• Bonnie was my high school girlfriend when I went away to college and as it turned out, she broke up with me. Weeks later I went for a walk in the winter night and fell to the ground crying out to God, “Why”!
• The following summer I met Ken. He invited me to a church that had a special interest for me – lots of pretty girls. God had other plans than romance for me though. Ken shared with me about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. As a result, the direction of my life was changed forever.
• Ken invited me to a summer training program the next year in Lansing, Michigan. Following that summer, I dropped out of college and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Eventually, I developed a desire to “use basketball to share Christ with black inner-city boys”.
• Soon after that, a friend of one of my roommates called looking for volunteer basketball coaches for an inner-city ministry. Tom, and his boss Dick, eventually invited me to be on paid staff where I served for twenty-five years.
• In my first year as a volunteer I met Debbie who later became my wife. The rest is history as they say.

 

“It is good to say thank you to the Lord, to sing praises to the God who is above all gods. Every morning tell him, “Thank you for your kindness,” and every evening rejoice in all his faithfulness”.            Psalm 92:1-2 TLB

As I consider my list of five, I realize that God has been both kind and faithful to me over the years and decades. For that I am thankful. But it also occurs to me that maybe my list of five is not so much my “cedars of Lebanon” as God is. He is my “Cedar of Lebanon”. He is solid and strong; an immovable object. For that I am most thankful.