Today I saw a picture of a dry-looking stick coming out of the ground with a few twigs spreading out to the right, looking old and tired or even dead. However, out of the top was a fresh green leaf. This is reminiscent of the words of 600-700 BC prophet Isaiah 11:1 " A shoot will come up out of the stump of Jesse; from its root a branch shall bear fruit". This is referring to Jesus all those hundreds of years before He was born. The gospel of Matthew 1 lists Jesus's genealogy with the generations before Jesse father of King David down to Joseph who we know as the father of Jesus. Isaiah 11 continues to describe the life-filled shoot as having the Spirit of the Lord resting upon it. Centuries later Jesus declared that He was the fulfilment of that prophecy of Isaiah (See Luke 4:18-19). Believe Jesus to bring life out of what feels like wilderness, barren and dry times.
