who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
They will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
But blessed are those who trust in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:5-8
Jeremiah saw clearly the alternatives facing his society. He lamented how everyone instinctively turned away from God and relied on their own virtues and efforts instead. With a large brush he painted a picture of the moral and social barrenness that marked the nation. He lamented the spiritual denial that made people blind to their condition.
Echoing the call to worship in Psalm One Jeremiah called his people back to the riverbank, to a life nourished by confidence in God’s goodness, a life that yields stability and assurance, a life that can stand up to the heat of drought and still produce fruit.Jeremiah warns us that we can be either a thorn bush in the parched wasteland or a tree nourished by the stream of God, a tumbleweed or an olive tree. The choice we make determines whether we enjoy God’s blessing or the curse.
No one in human history modeled this life of being rooted in God as richly as Jesus of Nazareth. He showed us how blessed it is to put our confidence in God and to nourish heart and mind in the stories of God’s faithfulness. He embodied riverbank righteousness, in the most creatively human life the world has ever witnessed. That’s where you and I can nourish our souls, too.
Image sources
Thorn-bush -
Palm tree
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