This Olive tree caught my attention recently.  Olive trees are everywhere around here, but this particular olive tree is on the temple mount, on the east side and hugging the wall, as close as it can possibly get to the “Holy of Holies”.  If you look closely at the base, you can see that this olive tree has been through a lot.  Life has not been kind to this olive tree, it has survived drought, disease, severe wind, lightning, even a war or two.  And yet it still stands, flourishes even, in the shadow of God’s Holy Mountain awaiting the return of the Messiah, which by the way is to be from the east (coming from the Mount of Olives). Despite much adversity, it’s branches stretch toward the sun, and continue to bear much fruit.

“But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.”   Psalm 52:8