The unshakeable

I can't exactly remember when I first heard the term oaks of righteousness but I think it was sometime last year. Well last Saturday before outreach it came to mind and I started studying one of the oak trees that are in the courtyard. It didn't take too much examination for me to see that there were many scars on the bark.
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These scars represent reason where any number of things happened which damaged the protective layer of this tree. Seeing those wounds helped me gain an insight into my life. Because as people we will experience events in life which will damage us and leave us scarred but as oaks of righteousness, we will not be shaken. For the righteousness that it speaks of can only come from Christ and that is a concrete foundation for us.
All those areas of woundedness that I saw were only external. Though they may have somewhat effected the tree none of them damaged the heart and foundational parts of the tree either above or below ground. What an image of Christ that is, He took our punishment and pain on Himself so that we could have salvation, He acted as our protecter from eternal separation from Him and suffering in eternity.
So I had that thought and was really blessed by the insight but still didn't know where it actually talked about in the Bible, until Wednesday. I was reading Isaiah 61 and there it was in verse 3. I always enjoy when God times that stuff out. Obviously at some point I would have come across it at some point in my reading as I work through the scriptures, but that's God's timing and His faithfulness to prove true what He reveals.
So we are oaks of righteousness, strong and wounded but Jesus has taken the beating we deserve and has allowed us to grow our roots deep and branches high into the sky. Become the unshakeable oak that Christ deserves to have in His garden.

Just to update this: in two chapels over the last week and a half different people have felt compelled to speak the passage from Isaiah 61. Both read from the beginning of the chapter to a point just after the mention of the oaks of righteousness. God was speaking this to me and now it's pretty evident that he wants everyone here at BCOM to know about it. I'm really excited about it!