Through the powerful metaphor of trees, Demetrius N. Booth, Ph.D., guides readers through the divine process of becoming. Each chapter mirrors a stage of spiritual formationâclimate, soil, seed, roots, pruning, fruit, and loveârevealing how God cultivates the human soul over time. Drawing from Scripture, psychological insight, and personal experience, the book invites readers to examine what they are rooted in, what they are carrying, and what they are being prepared to produce.
This is not a book of quick answers. It is a call to slow down, to see honestly, and to trust the unseen work of God beneath the surface. With a pastoral yet purposeful tone, Booth challenges readers to embrace the tension of growth, the necessity of pruning, and the faith required to bear fruit in due season.
Through the powerful metaphor of trees, Demetrius N. Booth, Ph.D., guides readers through the divine process of becoming. Each chapter mirrors a stage of spiritual formationâclimate, soil, seed, roots, pruning, fruit, and loveârevealing how God cultivates the human soul over time. Drawing from Scripture, psychological insight, and personal experience, the book invites readers to examine what they are rooted in, what they are carrying, and what they are being prepared to produce.
This is not a book of quick answers. It is a call to slow down, to see honestly, and to trust the unseen work of God beneath the surface. With a pastoral yet purposeful tone, Booth challenges readers to embrace the tension of growth, the necessity of pruning, and the faith required to bear fruit in due season.
He spoke of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.
â1 Kings 4:33, KJV
The Gospel according to Mark describes a conversation between Jesus and a blind man. Jesus and his twelve disciples were traveling to Bethsaida when a blind man was brought to Him. The crowd begged Jesus to touch the man. Jesus took the man by the hand and led him out of the village. There, away from the crowd, doubters, and naysayers, a remarkable conversation occurred.
After spitting on the manâs eyes and laying hands on him, Jesus asked, âWhat do you see?â The manâs initial answer was, âI see men walking as trees.â It is this conversation with Jesus and the life of my mother that inspires the elements of this book. Trees are often used as a symbol for humanity in childhood fables, myths, poems, and Holy Scripture. My motherâs loving touch on the eyes of my soul shines through me, bringing out my humanity, and I am all the better for it.
I have often heard, âBloom where you are planted.â Essentially, this means you should be fruitful no matter where you are planted. After deep conversations with my friend, Joel Buys, about trees, my perspective on this topic has changed. I explored the top-rated internet search engine and couldnât find a single vendor selling oranges grown in a grove across Maine. Blooming where you are planted doesnât happen without significant effort to create the right conditions; even then, many factors matter. Chances are, youâve never seen an orange grow from a grove in Maine because the conditions arenât ideal for that tree to bear fruit there. The seed may be sound, the roots might dig deep, but if the climate resists its nature, the tree struggles. The same is true for us.
The phrase, âBloom where you are planted,â can be misleading because it shifts all responsibility for growth onto the individual, as though divine design, environment, and cultivation play no part.
Growth requires partnershipâbetween the soil and the seed, the gardener and the garden. Leaders must be discerning and work to create the right conditions for growth. The tools, timing, and tenderness of leadership determine whether a grove thrives or languishes. The wise leader learns to test the soil, to prune, when necessary, and to shelter young shoots from harsh winds until they can withstand the elements on their own.
This by no means removes responsibility from the individual [tree]. Every person must still reach for light, still drink deeply from the water provided, and still stretch roots into the unseen depths of faith and discipline. If you are leading in any capacity, look around at the trees in your family, community, or organization ⌠are they dead, suffering, coping, or fruitful?
The Model from Nature:
There was a winter when the orange grove nearly died. The cold came early that yearâsharp, unrelenting, and without warning. The farmer and his family worked through the night, burning small fires between the rows to save what they could; their breath rose like smoke in the frozen dawn, and their bodies shivered for warmth as the wind blew. When the sun's rays finally climbed over the horizon, they revealed branches heavy with frost and fruit that had turned to stone in the cold. Many trees stood silent, brittle, appearing lifeless and defeated as the sun broke the crest of dawn.
But what the frost touched, it could not destroy. Beneath the hardened bark, life remained. The stubborn roots still remembered the warmth of summer, their purpose, and the change of seasons. The trees that looked most wounded held a stoic strength, sending their energy downward to preserve the core. When spring returned, new shoots emergedâsmall, persistent, vibrant green against the circumstance of frost. The next harvest came later than usual, but the oranges were richer, their sweetness deepened by the struggle. The frost had changed each treeânot by making them weaker, but by teaching them endurance.
That grove became a story among the growers: the trees that had endured the freeze produced the sweetest fruit. So, it is with us. Sometimes, the seasons that seem to steal our vitality are the very ones that refine our strength and help us survive. The cold may strip us, but it cannot reach what is rooted deep in faith. What once felt like loss becomes the slow making of sweetnessâfruit that feeds others with the sweetness of perseverance.
Chapter Reflection: The Climate of Growth:
This is the lesson of leadership, and the law of life: you cannot demand fruit from a place you have not tended.
Every environment we inhabitâfamilies, teams, congregations, and communitiesâhas a climate. And whether we realize it or not, we are all climate-makers and barometers. Our words, our tone, our patience or impatience, and our grace or lack of itâall of it sets the temperature for growth.
The orange cannot change the weather, but the gardener can build shelter, redirect water, or nourish the soil to sustain life. The wise leader knows when to create warmth and when to provide shade, when to prune and when to rest. Perhaps the question isnât simply, âAre you blooming where you are planted?â but rather, âWhat kind of atmosphere are you
cultivating where you are?â Because soil remembers how it has been treated, roots respond to careâfruit answers to faithfulness.
Christian life is toughâreally, really tough! Before turning to Christ, one needs to count the cost: a full, no-turning-back, no-matter-what-the-future-brings surrender to Him (as explained in Luke 14:26-28). Yet, in the thrill of that moment, you decided the cost didnât matter. You would live the Christian life daily, face the severest hardships that came your way, and even make the supreme sacrifice of laying down your life if called upon! So, you went ahead and welcomed Jesus into your life!!
Though significant, this moment was only a beginningâa landmark event on your lifeâs timeline, like birth. The tough part, and the part that matters most, is what followed: living the Christian life daily and growing into a fruit-bearing tree, which is by no means a cakewalk.
Living the Christian life isnât a tame thing. While you can claim the unfailing promises of God to see you through anything in life, it's still a journey fraught with things we dreadârejection, isolation, hatred, betrayal, broken relationships, financial hardship, and unexpected personal events so dark and devastating they may make you want to quit! Yet Christ, though abundantly kind and never allowing burdens too hard to bear, expects His children to live lives of unyielding obedience at the highest quality individually possible, day after day.
Ultimately, God wants His children to grow and bear fruit in the worldâlove, joy, peaceâand not just fruit, but sweet fruit, for others to taste and see. And since it all begins with the seed He plants in us, the most crucial period is the seed-to-tree phase: a daily process requiring the utmost careâwatering, ensuring adequate sunlight, nurturing and nourishment, protection from pests, pruning for growth, and moreâuntil the seed becomes a strong, self-sufficient tree that produces fruit.
I See Men As Trees: Living with Divine Vision by Demetrius Booth is a passionate book that focuses precisely on the growth phaseâhow to grow a seed (the Word of God planted in oneâs heart) into a fruit-bearing Christian tree! It draws on seed-to-tree events and experiences that the author and his family underwent to explain this process of growth in Christ.
This book is also a glowing tribute to the authorâs mother, whose lifeâapart from Jesus, as he acknowledgesâinspired the writing of certain parts of it. Itâs well-written and concise, at about 100 pages. Appropriate choices in page style, formatting effects, font, etc., greatly enhance its appeal and readability. Each chapter concludes with a summary and a âCall to Action and Reflectionâ section, encouraging readers to engage in introspection and to apply what they learned to their lives.
Another strong point, for which the author rightly deserves credit, is that the book contains no English errorsâabsolutely none!
Taking both the plus and minus points into account, I rate the book four stars.
While all are welcome to read it, the very nature of the book limits its meaningful readership to born-again, committed Christians and those who feel strongly drawn to Christ. I therefore recommend it to both these groups, who are English-speaking, in addition: first, to native English speakers, and then to the others.