The word “tree” is used 428 times in the scriptures. “Tree of life” itself occurs no fewer than twenty-nine times. Few images in the scriptures awaken in the hearts of truth-seekers more reverence and awe than the image of the noble tree, the unfailing emblem of enduring growth, timeless strength, and towering majesty. Jeremiah, Lehi’s immediate contemporary, extended the image of the tree to the person directly: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green… .” (Jeremiah 17:7–8). Similarly, Lehi’s younger contemporary, Ezekiel, wrote of his vision of the temple of God, which issues forth a stream of healing water to sustain trees and growth on either side (see Ezekiel 47:7–9), surely a further manifestation of God’s spiritual nourishment of the Saints. A similar image is reflected by John in his vision of the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God (see Revelation 2:7; 22:2, 14).
Again and again the image of the tree awakens in our souls a sense of spiritual potential. From the allegory of the olive trees as a likeness of Israel’s unfolding and destiny (see Jacob 5) to the imagery of Zion’s “branches” extending around the world to the very substance of Zion’s organizational structure itself (i.e., poles and stakes of wood that support the canopy of spiritual refuge) to the very essence of the wooden cross of the Atonement. All of these tree-related emblems come back to one thing: the love of God manifested through the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ offered through grace to His sons and daughters as a means of bringing them home again.
All of us contribute, in our own way, to the growth of the spiritual forest. For all of us there are trees of significance somewhere in the record of our lives—some of which we may have planted and nourished personally. What are these trees, these personal trees of life? There is no dearth of models to reflect on. We come back to that sacred grove where the boy Joseph received the first messages about the Restoration and learned firsthand about the verity of the living Father and Son. We remember with admiration and respect the story of President Hinckley’s venerated walnut tree that became, in effect, the podium for the new conference center from which emanates continual truth about the “tree of life” in the form of God’s love.
My wife recounts her vivid childhood memory of a cherished willow tree, visible from her bedroom window, through whose limbs she could see in her mind’s eye, season after season, the temple of God standing nearby as a symbol of everlasting life. For her, the willow tree was part of a spiritual forest that offers peace and hope. In our home today we still have on display a sculpture of the Holy Family beautifully carved from linden wood by an Austrian artist we met one year—a tree-based symbol of Christ’s birth. A current neighbor of ours tells fondly of an ancient sycamore tree in their family homestead in the Northwest that contributed a towering stump upon which he erected a mechanical device that would swing his children on ropes in a great arc about the tree—a source of endless hours of family recreation and togetherness still talked about in family circles decades later. For him, the tree was part of the spiritual forest that symbolized the enduring family of God. And so it goes.
What are the trees in your life? There is value in walking through the spiritual forest of your life and in contemplating the blessings of God embodied in the imagery of those special trees that reflect His love and remind us of the promise: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). [Richard J. Allen]