Reforesting Faith

Reforesting Faith: What Trees Teach Us About the Nature of God and His Love for Us

By Matthew Sleeth, MD

I had my reservations about this book. I'm not sure why, but I think I feared it was going to be to "churchy" for me.  The author Dr. Matthew Sleeth is up front about his return/finding God through some tough life events.  He was a carpenter after his school days.  Then he became a doctor- emergency room medicine.  Later he leaves his medical profession to go out and "teach, preach and write about the biblical call to be good stewards of the earth."

This book was fascinating in the way Matthew "connected the dots" for trees in the Bible.  He has some great quotes throughout the book.  Here are some of my favorite.

pg 29 " Without humans trees would manage just fine.  Without trees, people would perish."

pg39 "But don't despair while brutally honest, the Bible is a story of hope and redemption."

pg 48 " A rainbow is all the light we can see symbolizing a God we cannot see."

pg 79 " We don't need more wonders; we need a greater sense of wonder ment."

pg 110 " But probably the most important things trees do for a City is to lift the spirits of its citizens.  Trees are a city's stake in its future.  Great cities have great trees."

pg 169 " We ingest poisons (alcohol, drugs) at a level that makes us lose our ability to think straight and causes us to die young.  Yet we spend billions of dollars trying to live longer."

I'm not quite sure how the atheists and agnostics will read this book as it has many connections of trees to the Bible.  However, I didn't feel it was overly heavy and I appreciated the way in which Matthew tied in Bible stories to their relations to trees.  

Thankful to WaterBrook for sending me this book to review.