Under the Shade of the Tree of Life
The alien-looking baobab tree of Africa, Australia, and Madagascar is sometimes referred to as "the tree of life" because it provides shelter, clothing, food, and water for both man and animal. The bloated trunk of the tree can store thousands of gallons of water in its spongy, fibrous wood during the rainy season, which it then uses during the subsequent dry period.
The tree produces a fruit called "monkey bread," which contains more vitamin C than four oranges. Other parts of the tree are useful as well. For example, the pollen can be used as glue, and the oily, protein-packed seeds can be roasted and eaten. Young leaves can be used like spinach and have lots of calcium, while the fibrous trunk can be woven into rope, cloth, mats, and paper. Even the bark can be used to make tea. Older trees are often hollow, providing living space for animals and humans.
Many baobab trees appear to be ancient, dated many thousands of years old. One aged tree in South Africa measures 72 feet high and 155 feet in circumference.
Did you know the Bible mentions that about six thousand years ago, there was a real tree of life here on earth?
Out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden (Genesis 2:9).
What's more, we're also told we will eat from that tree in heaven!
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7, NIV).
God IS Our Environment
An observation exists out their on the internet, in various versions, and with various attributions. It is worth repeating, and it goes something like this ...
When God wanted to create fish, He turned to the sea. When God wanted to create trees, He turned to the earth. But when God wanted to create man, He turned to Himself. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image and in Our likeness.”
If you take a fish out of water, it will die; and when you remove a tree from soil, it will also die. Likewise, when man is disconnected from God, he dies.
Conversely, water without fish is still water, but fish without water are nothing. Soil without trees is still soil, but a tree without soil is nothing. God without man is still God, but man without God is nothing.
It continues,
God IS our natural environment. We were created to live in His presence. We have to be connected to Him because it is only in Him that true life exists. And in plugging into Him, he grants us dominion over all else.
"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth'” (Genesis 1:26, ESV).
"And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring’" (Acts 17:26-28, ESV).
"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).
The Glue That Holds Us Together
Ever wonder how our body stays neatly contained within the confines of our cells and organs? Well, you can thank Laminins for that little piece of biological magic!
Laminins are large molecular weight glycoproteins constituted by the assembly of three disulfide-linked polypeptides, the α, β and γ chains. The human genome encodes 11 genetically distinct laminin chains. Structurally, laminin chains differ by the number, size and organization of a few constitutive domains, endowing the various members of the laminin family with common and unique important functions. In particular, laminins are indispensable building blocks for cellular networks physically bridging the intracellular and extracellular compartments and relaying signals critical for cellular behavior, and for extracellular polymers determining the architecture and the physiology of basement membranes.
Basement membranes are specialized extracellular matrices holding cells and tissues together, a property largely due to their content in laminins.
In short, laminims are what scientists refer to as "adhesion" molecules. They are the molecular glue which hold our very beings together.
Molecular biologists call laminin “the glue of the body,” because without it, our bodies would fall apart. With that said, note the specific appearance of this critical molecule.
Some have suggested that it is no coincidence that laminin molecules arrange themselves into the shape of a cross.
The truth is, without Jesus and what he did for us on the cross, our whole lives would fall apart. Colossians 1:17 says that Jesus “is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
"For in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28, NIV).
Jesus is the one who holds all things together!