Oaks & Oars
Two verses spoke to me the past couple days. Do verses ever speak to you? If not, then I suggest you do three things.
- Ask for God to speak to you? You have not, because you ask not. Act 4:2-3
- Ask for forgiveness and make things right. 1 Peter 3:12 “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and the ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Proverbs 15:29 “The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous.” Pslam 34:17 “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from their troubles.”
- Lastly, Find a quiet place away from social media, open and dig into the Word of God, and listen for the still soft voice. Dig in and seek with all your heart.
Isaiah 61:3 is the powerful verse that God spoke to me this past week. Our theme for this season comes from Zachariah 10:3, God will make us His mighty warhorse in battle. Yet, this week, God made sure that I was aware that we must not just be prepared to charge into battle, but we must also be an “Oak of Righteousness”. The Lord’s prayer says to forgive our debtors. I have found forgiveness to be a powerful portal opener to hearing from God.
Isaiah says it like this, “The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners. God sent me to announce the year of his grace—a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies—and to comfort all who mourn, To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them “Oaks of Righteousness” planted by God to display his glory.
I may fall short in my ability to articulate and my choice of words quite often, but God never comes up short in His choice of a noun. We are renamed and planted Oaks for the sole purpose of displaying His Glory. That caused me to look a little deeper into the word Oak.
Before I touch on Oaks, I must point out that Jesus repeated part of Isaiah’s prophecy in Luke 4:18-19. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I claim 2020 as the year of the Lord’s favor. I find it interesting that we are to do as our Savior, mirror Him, as He mirrored the Heavenly Father. We must ask for the Spirit of the Lord to be on us and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. We must proclaim the good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and set the oppressed free as well.
We are not only to be fearless warhorses, but we are also to be giant oaks of righteousness planted protecting our homes and our loved ones. One important detail that I have identified as being connected directly to success in coaching basketball is that you can run, shoot, and hustle, but without rim protection you simply can’t win a championship. Nobody did this better than Virginia and Texas Tech last season in the NCAA. It was no coincidence that these two programs ended up in the Championship game. Rim protection and defense starts with becoming an Oak of Righteousness as a unit. Then we attack like Warhorses!
The one common denominator in my teams that reached championships is that every team core strength was our defense. They all ranked in the top 5 in Defensive Field Goal Percentage. We were able to limit our opponent’s ability to get and make easy shots. Imagine limiting our enemy’s ability of taking easy shots at you.
The Oak tree is one of the most loved trees in the world, and with good reason. It’s a symbol of strength, morale, resistance and knowledge. Oaks are said to take 300 years to grow, 300 years to live and 300 years to die. They are majestic trees.
I will add one more detail about being a planted Oak. Trees grow very differently depending on the situation they planted to grown in. If you place an Oak seedling and plant it in the woodlands surrounded by other trees, it will grow tall and thin to make sure the crowns reach the canopy so it can reach the light to gather strength. They don’t tend to have many side branches, especially lower down the trunk, and they don’t tend to live as long as trees that are grown in a more open setting. Open grown trees take a completely different shape, developing full crowns, with a wide and open limb structure, with large limbs growing from further down the main trunk of the tree. The tree is not crowded by other trees, and maximizes the amount of light they can capture.
In Acts 8:4, this takes another intriguing twist as the verse says, “Therefore they that were scattered abroad when every where preaching the word.” The word scattered abroad, I found to mean the opposite of what I thought it did. I thought that the disciples had been scattered abroad by the death of Jesus and were fearful and lost to what to do next. It actually was just the opposite as it meant the master had scattered the seed hand planting each and every seed exactly where He wanted each to grow. He has planted each of us as well and given us the power source in the Holy Spirit.
I felt humbled by the word I felt God had shared with me, but I dug in and kept seeking. Is there more God? Will you show me more? I tend to be a little bit dyslexic in speech and sometimes in how I see or hear things. I saw Oaks of Righteousness and somehow saw the initials OAR instead of OOR. As a passionate fisherman, it led me into a deeper study of OAR’s in the Bible. One thing you never leave without on a fishing voyage is an Oar. The definition of an Oar: A pole with a flat blade, pivoting in an oar lock, used to row or steer a boat through the water. An Oar provides power and guides you through the water. I always feel safe when I have an Oar in my boat. I never want to go on any voyage without the Holy Spirit, He is like an oar, a trusted power and source of guidance at all times. Someone you can always trust in both good and bad times.
You can have a big powerful motor on your boat and even a trolling motor with a battery, but all the good fisherman that I know still bring an OAR with them on their fishing journeys. You are prepared so when all else fails, you still have the ability to create power with a little work and an OAR! I also found an interesting verse that connected Oaks & Oars. Ezekiel 27:6 “Of oaks from Bashan they have made your oars,”
Bashan is a country in Judea where oaks grew; (Isaiah 2:13) . The country of Judea in general was famous for oaks; it abounded with them. Oaks & Oars what a powerful combination. I believe God was telling me that you can’t have true success from one without the other.
May God speak to you more and more as you seek His voice and dig in deeper into His Word. May you be an Oak of Righteousness and keep the OAR with you at all times that provides consistent power when all else fails. Oaks & Oars are one of the most powerful combinations on earth. lead to wonder and that leads to the winning of souls as they are drawn to God’s Glory!
Photo by shayan abedi on Unsplash