The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar in Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. – Psalm 92:12-13

I live in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, which is nowhere near as snow-laden as the Upper Peninsula, where diesel powered arms of steel scoop Old Man Winter’s droppings off the roads and onto blanketed lawns for storage until the melting sun reveals itself again, currently scheduled for July 2027.

No, there’s not as much snow here in the Lower Peninsula as the UP hosts, but it’s enough to make me sit on the better side of a window and think about Florida, a land flowing with warm breezes and tropical artifacts, which invites every Michigander from both peninsulas to find their winter home in the Sunshine state, currently populated with so many people like me that you might also refer to it as the lowest peninsula. I mean that in a good way.

Palm trees. That’s what they got down there. Those big, bendy, wavy deep green leaves that thrive in their native climate. Beautiful as they are, they’d never survive up here in Michigan, where it gets so cold that we warm ourselves by standing in our kitchens before the open door of the fridge. 37 degrees is balmy compared to the seasonal windchills.

If a palm tree has a hospitable climate, nourishing soil, and a healthy root system, it will grow and flourish. Unless it’s in the right place with the right food and strong roots, the palm tree — like any tree, including a cedar — will fail. There will be little to no growth and certainly a lack of flourishing.

In a search for a meaningful image and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the psalmist uses the palm tree as a symbol of a righteous person. “The righteous will flourish,” he says, meaning that trusting, obeying, and honoring God with everything leads to flourishing – vigorous thriving, growing, prosperous. This is more than spiritual or material blessing, though: when we flourish, we exist as image bearers of God who display His glory and experience a life we can only find in Him.

God does not call us to failure but He does give us the ingredients we need for flexible flourishing. Sure, we suffer, and that suffering may even be part of His plan in our lives. In the Kingdom of God, suffering is transformed to something majestic, a beauty from ashes, a mountaintop story that can only be told after the valley. Flourishing isn’t a lack of suffering, it’s the God-given capacity to keep thriving, like a palm tree that flexes in the wind yet boiii–ooiiinnnggs back into place. Almost as if… it were having a good time. Flourishing makes us flexible.

A flourishing palm tree is like a flourishing spiritual life:

• We’ve gotta be planted in the right place: the house of the Lord. Or, put another way, right where we’re at while aware of His presence in us.
• We’ve gotta have the right soil: the Word of God with all its truth, power, spiritual nutrient.
• We’ve gotta grow roots: deep into the heart and life of God.