City of Palms

“…Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms.” Judges 3:13

Happy, Texas is just a small town some forty miles from Amarillo. There isn’t really anything to be happy about when one beholds the small town from I-27. There isn’t a whole lot to see except some tall grass and short scrubby trees scattered on the high plains. In fact, it makes me depressed looking at it from afar and I can’t help thinking that the first settlers gave the town that name because they were anything but happy at the sight of the bleak landscape.

At least the name of the place has one particular purpose. It serves as a reminder to the town’s people that they ought to be happy, even though they may have very little to be happy about. That’s the place they chose to sink their roots and make their homes, to raise their young and bury their dead. When there are homes and family, there is happiness.

There were only a few palm trees in the City of Palms.

There were some Canaanites there who had been there a long time before the Israelites arrived. They didn’t bother to give it a name, for many of them probably were nomads and it was just a place with fresh water and a few palm trees where they pitched their tent. It might just have been a piece of semi-barren land to them. Not so with the Israelites though. It was a land flowing with milk and honey, the land that was given to them by God. They named it the City of Palms and considered their new home extremely promising.

God’s chosen people were indeed quite industrious. They all rolled up their sleeves and started working as soon as they got there. They built their houses with bricks and sticks and erected their homes with love. They planted their olives on the hills and their vines in the valley. With cheerful hearts and unyielding spirits, they settled in the new land and proudly called the City of Palms their home.

Their aspiration was to settle on the land for good, for after years of wandering they had become weary of moving. So they scattered their seeds and planted their trees, waiting patently for the coming harvest, not realizing that even the city filled with palms wasn’t really their permanent home. When they became complaisant and forsook their God, the pagans would quickly emerge and drive them away from their vineyards and their hearths. The Promised Land would become less and less promising because of their lack of love for the Lord and their negligence in observing their promises to God.

We name our cities Fairfield and Greenville; we call our places Happy and City of Palms and believe that we will be there for the long haul. I have grown so attached to our little house that the thought of moving away may bring a tear to my eye. My house does have a classical style and a resounding name and it is surrounded by pecan trees and cemented by love. This is my fortress and my city of Palms, isn’t? Don’t we all have our City of Palms that we have been building and will not let go that easily?

Don’t we have any idea that perhaps underneath our towering walls and in the shadow of the slender palm trees, Eglon and his troops are laying siege? This will eventually take place if we continue to attempt to build an eternal city with streets of gold on the shifting sands of the City of Palms.