Bibledoorajar: Seeing the Tree's Properties

     When Moses stood there with those unhappy people who had found bitter water to drink, he was not in touch with the fact that there was a tree with sweetening properties right in front of them. He had to be shown the tree by God.
      Is it not true that we moderns are so much like the people of old? We rejoice and praise God for His goodness toward us with one breath and gripe and complain about what the day three days hence  brings us. But God who knows all about His children sometimes has to drive us to a place where we do not take Him for granted in our circumstances. Jesus does, after all, promise that He is always with us. God loved the Israelites so much that He put them in the presence of a tree that would sweeten their water. That was its' property: to sweeten. Of course, they did not see its' properties. That had to be revealed to them.
He has loved you and I so much that He has revealed a tree that held His Only Son. We can behold its' properties: everlasting love, redemption, full salvation, grace. And, on and on it goes. What happened with that tree for the Israelites was real. The tree that bared the Savior was real,  is real, and will always be real. And God helps us see it. Over and over.
So when we are "three days" out from rejoicing and we find ourselves bitter about our circumstances, we might want to ask God to allow us to see all the properties of "the tree on a hill far away". Only God can push us toward it when we become bitter. How great is His love for you and me. The experience of the Israelites at Marah is for our admonition (1 Corinthians 10) lest we forget.

"I saw One hanging on a tree"

John Newton