My prayer is that you see clearly the truths laid out in this book and that you recognize their Biblical significance. Because of that significance, I pray that you are convicted enough to begin taking these concepts before the Lord and seeking Him for any changes needed. I challenge you to adapt your life to wisdoms which guide your confessions of God’s Word, and which give a voice to a proactive faith in God.
I take a great deal of satisfaction in the fact that, once you complete this book, its message will continue unabated without my lifting another finger. This is because, as long as you are on this earth, you will never be able to escape the presence, the influence, and the impact of the botanical world. You will no longer be able to take for granted the processes in the plant kingdom and why they are relentless witnesses against us, or more positively, why we should pay very close attention to their model.
You might have had some mental blocks about talking to mountains[1] and mulberry trees,[2] like Jesus suggested. You might think it out of your comfort zone to give yourself to the verbal expressions that are natural to a life filled with God’s Word—the very message of this book. But now, it’s really going to get peculiar as plants everywhere are going to start talking to you with a message from their Creator about how you should begin to live.
You may never hear from or of me again, but you will never be able to escape the message of this book because it will be with you as long as my co-authors and allies, the plants, remain on the earth. The billions and billions of stomata, no farther away than a single step into your front yard, will be a constant and incessant reminder that you, too, should dedicate your mouth to the return of God’s Word in heaven through confessions—saying the same as God together.
The innate commitment of the botanical kingdom to large quantities of water intake will always be a challenging reminder that your intake of God’s water, His Word, must be your passion as well. Why would you, a planting of the Lord, want to do anything less, in spirit, than the rest of His planted creation?
You will understand this afresh every time it rains. Precipitation will now have new power to remind you of the Bible mandate to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.[3]
From now on, your drive down the highway will no longer be leisurely, as you will be ever aware of the presence of the spirit of amen reverberating with massive intensity from hundreds of thousands of trees and millions of crops. The water goes out and simultaneously the carbon dioxide comes in, over and over and over again.
Those same crops waving in the wind will now be waving at you personally, and their witness will follow you down every highway and street. You cannot escape.
If you’re not willing to take this message seriously, then you will, of necessity, need to steer clear of the produce section of your local grocery. The resulting harvest of that portion of creation that does take this message seriously will be there waiting, challenging your passivity, your spiritual superficialities, or your arrogance.
You won’t just be squeezing cantaloupe anymore; it will be a friendly gesture. Your inspection of tomatoes will be more like socializing with a friend. And your examining of cauliflower like receiving advice from a mentor. Your produce experience in the grocery store will never be the same from this time forward. Why you might even get excited and use your stoma to say something out loud that speaks of your love for Jesus. Seriously, how could you not be in profound consideration of the processes it took for this life-sustaining produce to be available to you and your family?
The cedars of Lebanon, the cherry trees of Michigan, the peach trees of Georgia, the soybeans of the Midwest, the wheat of the Great Plains, the Sequoias of California, the olive trees of Spain, the vineyards of Italy, the incredible foliage of the Amazon, and the untapped resources of botanical Africa all have something to offer the world. But more poignant and penetrating is the message they have for all people everywhere—that God has sent His Word into the earth, and it must be returned to heaven through confession and prayer, if the life and the promise of the God of heaven is to be fully realized on earth.
Jesus, the Word made flesh, was sent to this earth to do the bidding of the Father, but the return of Jesus to heaven where He sat down at the right hand of the Father completed the matter. Now, everyone who calls on the Lord as a result of the Word at work in their heart can find God’s intervention in their life to bring His promises to pass.
I must warn you.
Every book, newspaper, and magazine you read will now be characterized by your new awareness that something else is present trying to get your attention. The very pages, which originate with trees, and the ink, sometimes originating with soybeans, will be giggling with delight. Most of the time you will sit there reading like you always have, presuming upon the processes that make trees grow and that eventually contribute to your literary world. That presumption will make them laugh with each turned page because, though you appreciate so much the literature you hold in your hand, you are, nonetheless, inclined to be detached from the processes that made it possible for you to have the book in the first place. The very paper, the yield of a tree giving itself to decades of returning water to the heavens, witnesses that God has a way you should now live and change your world too.
With things you read in mind, what is the message people receive when they read you?
Can you feel this very book looking up at you even now? Why, I cannot even claim full authorship except to acknowledge that books aren’t even possible without plants.
And now consider the oxygen you breathe. Plants release those oxygen molecules on a regular basis—almost as an afterthought of the botanical process—and your body uses them to keep you alive. The oxygen molecules you breathe, and which give life and color to your red blood cells, have spent time in the intercellular spaces of a plant. This all-important gas has been released generously by countless plants to bless the human race.
I point you to the witness of the lumber in your house, the fabric of your clothes, the food in your pantry, the soap in your shower, the fuel in your automobile.
You are surrounded.
You can now surrender.
Come out with your hands up, praising God, and using your mouth to give Him glory and produce fruit through prayer, confession, and declaration of God’s Word.
Be the reason God’s Word will return to Him to accomplish what He pleases.
From now on, at every meal—right there on your table—will be the results of the botanical processes you’ve been reading about in this book. Green beans, corn, broccoli, and potatoes will be looking up at you from your plate saying, “Hey, buddy, your world has been blessed because the plants we came from cooperated with the processes of transpiration. Why don’t you cooperate with your Creator and Redeemer, too?”
Holding you to increased accountability will be various leaf salads. You won’t just be chewing lettuce, romaine, or spinach anymore; you will be chewing stomata. Every time you swallow, satisfying your hunger pains and contributing to your physical survival, will be a chorus shouting from inside you as they, guard cells and all, slide down your esophagus, “We did it! We did it! We did what God designed us to do and we made this world a better place.”
And then you will wonder if your world is a better place because of how you have used your stoma to declare God’s Word.
If your neighbors tasted of your life, would they find something sustaining?
You will now give special attention to signs that say, “Do not walk on the grass,” as you will have discovered new affinity with these plantings of the Lord. Neighbors will wonder why you are so emotional every time you mow the lawn. And if you haven’t already, you may find yourself giving your houseplants pet names. Your sense of discretion will be challenged as you may not know exactly how to respond at a funeral anymore, as the floral arrangements on the casket seem to be rejoicing while almost everyone else is grieving.[4]
There will be new meaning brought to the term “tree hugger.”
I can see it now.
Your friends will come to your home for a visit, and your spouse will say that you are out back. A closer look finds you leaning up against—and talking to—a tree saying, “Thank you, Mr. Tree. You have been an incredible asset in helping me know how to live, to drink in the Word of God, and make declaration in prayer over the life God has called me to steward. Every time I see you, I am reminded to live just like you do and have something to offer the world in which I am planted. Thank you for your witness and encouragement.”
From now on, I contend, and sincerely hope, that a new consciousness in your imagination will turn entire fields and orchards into resounding troupes of stomata proclaiming the glory of God.
Whether you can imagine it or not, it is still a literal reality.
You will begin to understand more and more how fields can actually be joyful—like the Bible says—and trees in the woods can rejoice.[5] Is it not interesting that when Jesus said that if people don’t praise Him, stones would do so[6] but said nothing about plants? Of course, in a very real and dynamic way, they already were.
The animation continues by pointing you to verse twelve and thirteen of Isaiah 55. These two verses follow directly behind the theme Scriptures of this book. Here are all the verses together:
Isaiah 55
10 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
12 For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree,
And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;
And it shall be to the LORD for a name,
For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
It may not be completely wise to relegate these particular verses, and verses like them about trees and plants, to the limitations of animation and allegory. I have a feeling this is not a Biblical cartoon where non-human objects are brought to life and do things like clap, shout and rejoice. Maybe the botanical kingdom, along with the rest of creation, even now literally groans for a better day, a groaning placed there by the Creator Himself.
We know that the bondage of corruption originating with the fall of man has brought extreme suffering on a global level. Sin has done its damage and does not let up. We have all experienced that suffering, and we groan too, eagerly waiting for the final redemption. Meanwhile, the Word of God in our hearts, seeds sown toward ultimate promise, becomes a daily witness in a corrupt world that God will use that Word to enter and transform a life in spite of the corruption and futility that exists around us. A present utopia is not yet the goal, but every testimony of a life transformed and prayers answered are evidence—strong evidence—that God has invaded corruption through His very Word. He did so ultimately by sending the Lord Jesus, the Word made flesh;[7] and, commissioned by Him, sends us,[8] born again not of corruptible, but of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God which lives and abides forever.[9] This reality brings His redemption to bear upon this world’s suffering while we await His second coming.[10]
Perhaps there is programmed into the DNA of plants a deposit of God’s ultimate objective, deliverance from the bondage of corruption, which will be realized in the final redemption of man and the glorious liberty of the children of God.[11]
It seems like man is the last to know about it, though. We can’t see beyond our own noses in spite of the floral fragrances and sundry pollen mixtures that permeate our nostrils every spring. We don’t even notice how in our face this created plant kingdom is.
After all, they are everywhere.
It would do us a great deal of good if we would pay attention to the signs, the signs that come from the creation around us, especially the plants, which are spending an incredible amount of stoma-launching energy to get our attention. If we ever really did notice the witness they are against us and adapt our lives to the kind of prayer concepts these plants model, then we would, indeed, change our world for the glory of God, too.
Speaking of signs and referring to Isaiah 55:13: What shall be to the Lord for a name and an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off? It is when God brings full redemption to man and turns thorns and briers into cypress and myrtle trees. According to this verse, even after the full redemption of man, plants will continue to be signs—get this: “everlasting signs…that shall not be cut off.” This awesome prospect of the role plants play helps us know how we ought to live and focus on what it takes for all plantings of the Lord, including us, to produce for the glory of God.
The last chapter of the Bible makes known that in heaven there is an everlasting sign, namely, the Tree of Life “which bore twelve fruits, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”[12] Assessing this heavenly tree makes me extremely curious why the leaves of the tree, and not the fruit of the tree, are for the healing of the nations. In the leaves are the stomata, and transpiration takes place there. The leaves, and their ever-active stomata, are the direct reason why fruit becomes a reality.
Could it be that hidden in the botanical kingdom are dimensions of the multi-faceted wisdom of God?[13] Could it be that this wisdom graciously mandates us to use the one mouth we have to proclaim its truth and pray God’s Word from this earth in our generation? And could it be that God then uses this verbal activity to bring literal healing to the nations via the proclaiming of the gospel and a proactive prayer life?
I believe this is, indeed, the case and ask you to join me in dedicating our lives, hearts, and mouths to exactly that.
You have God’s written wisdoms germinating, watering, feeding, and growing your life in Christ—His Word.
You have God’s promised empowerment to successfully apply yourself to these vital processes—His grace.
And you have God’s creation witness—nature’s amazing model—the plants.
Lord, help me understand these principles and begin to make the intake of Your Word my daily priority. May the Holy Spirit work in my heart to cause Your Word to come alive to me in powerful ways. And then, may those very words in my heart begin to be part of the declarations, confessions, and proclamations in prayer as I claim Your Word and its promises. I believe as Your Word from my heart and mouth returns to You, it accomplishes that which pleases You and prospers in the thing for which You sent it. Through Your Word, grow in me a spirit of faith that believes I have received and believes that what I say comes to pass, and may I bear much fruit to Your glory.
Let it be so.
So shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.[14]
…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.[15]
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus.[16]
[1] Mark 11:23
[2] Luke 17:6
[3] Colossians 3:16
[4] I hope my readers recognize my effort to make my point in a tongue-in-cheek manner and there is no need to turn my emphasis here into something eccentric.
[5] Psalm 96:12
[6] Luke 19:40
[7] John 1:14
[8] Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15
[9] 1 Peter 1:23
[10] Titus 2:13
[11] Romans 8:18-22
[12] Revelation 22:2
[13] Ephesians 3:10
[14] Isaiah 55:11
[15] Romans 10:9-10
[16] Hebrews 3:1
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