The Black Mulberry Tree

This is an interesting point from the Circuit Overseer's talk on Tuesday night,  At Luke 17:5,6 Jesus said: “Now the apostles said to the Lord: “Give us more faith.” Then the Lord said: “If you had faith the size of a mustard grain, you would say to this black mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea!’ and it would obey you.”"

The speaker pointed out that the mustard grain is tiny and the black mulberry is a very deep-rooted tree, hard to uproot. Now this is not an illustration about garden design - the point of it is that no matter what mountain-like deeply rooted obstacles we face, we can overcome them, IF we have faith in Jehovah. He is the all-powerful Creator.

And I was most impressed to find a photo of a black mulberry tree in Col's collection to head this blog.

The Circuit Overseer started his talk (Have Faith and do not Doubt) by pointing out that we are on a spiritual voyage to the new system - the paradise earth - and we need to keep our faith strong to avoid shipwreck.

This is the illustration used at 1 Timothy 1:18 which says: “This instruction I entrust to you, my child Timothy, in harmony with the prophecies that were made about you, that by these you may go on waging the fine warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some have thrust aside, resulting in the shipwreck of their faith.”

How to strengthen our faith and avoid shipwreck, especially so close to harbour? The talk was very helpful, And very timely as I am finding it so hard to get back to the door to door preaching work.

And especially as we are all living in these "difficult times hard to deal with".

Our streets are becoming more and more lawless. They were not a paradise in my childhood, far from it. but us kids could roam them in comparative safety.  And we are seeing this "increasing of lawlessness" worldwide, as Jesus himself prophesied. But I am happy to say that I did get out on the door to door work on Wednesday - only for three quarters of an hour, but we covered our territory, so we gave a few more people another chance to learn that we are not abandoned to this, that we have a loving Creator, who is coming to our rescue.

My Gym lesson (Physio) on Friday was much more rigorous. Different physio, different regime, but I have to trust that they know what they are doing. And come Saturday morning I can still walk! I am typing this to a background of clattering as it seems the scaffolding is coming down. At last. And I did manage a morning out on the door to door work with a sibling. I had hoped to get to 3 return visits, but only managed 2. However I made myself go out again this afternoon and found my lady at home. She is not interested, and said she only took the little publication I offered her out of politeness. But we parted on good terms, and she still has the leaflet about the Kingdom I left her, so who knows if she might pick it up and read it one day.  I am shattered now, but hopefully I can have the rest of the day off.