When we visited the Holy Land a few years ago we had a Muslim guide and his knowledge of the Holy Land and the Bible (Old and New Testament) was wonderful.
However, he never referred to OLIVE Trees in that way it was always OLIVER Trees. That provided us all with a chuckle but also, I, and many of us, now cannot think of OLIVE Trees but always OLIVER Trees!
The olive is one of the most important and symbolic plants mentioned in the Bible. Its hard timber was used for special furniture (l Kings 6), its oil anointed prophets and kings (Judges 9) and was used to anoint our Queen at her coronation. Anointing with oil is also associated with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (l Samuel 15) and in the New Testament (Acts 10.38). Probably the most famous place we always think of is the Mount of Olives with the Garden of Gethsemane at the bottom of the Mount. Some of the trees there now are believed to be descended from the trees which were there in Jesus’s time.
I am sure that those of us who have been privileged to visit the Holy Land will not forget the special feeling in visiting Jesus’s journey to the Cross and perhaps especially the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was desperate to talk to his Father, but after intensive prayer accepted his Father’s will.
I am not suggesting we always accept our own Father’s advice, although it is usually right, but for us to pray more to God or, if we prefer, to Jesus. We might not get an answer straight away, or what we really want to hear, like Jesus, but it usually makes us feel so much better to tell Jesus what is on our mind and to leave it with him.
So pray and remember that God is always with us through thick and thin.