Firmly Planted


But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
He 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 17:7-8

 

How simple is the life of that tree. It is planted safely at the edge of the stream. The water is always there, in the blessed cool or the sweltering heat. The tree makes no effort to obtain the water. The tree simply stands beside the water and waits. Further, that same tree does not wring its branches each year and wonder if this will be the year that no fruit grows.

Most of us are so different from that tree.  We stand beside the Lord, a position that ensures us love, protection, freedom and still we fret and worry. How will feed our family? What if… and here you can add just about anything you want because we what if ourselves senseless. We do not trust that whatever God has planned is right and best.  When “heat” comes into our lives, in whatever form, we panic.  Our prayers to often become the “oh dear Lord, now what?” variety instead of the “this makes no sense to me but I’ll trust in your plan” prayer.

 Granted there are a few people in this world who do stand right beside the water that is God and just allow Him to bless and protect them.  I don’t know about you but I am a little envious of that tree and its human counterparts.  My life would be so much better, so uncomplicated, if I would simply stand beside my Lord and let Him truly be Lord of my life.

What if the tree decided to move over? Or what if it decided to suck up all the water around it in one day just in case there was no water the next day? Oh my gosh that is ridiculous isn’t it?  It is, but think about it. How much time do you spend wondering if what you are doing right now is what you should be doing? How many precious moments of the present are wasted worrying about what is going to maybe happen in the future?

 God is more than happy to have us stand right beside Him and allow Him to enlighten our path, provide our food, enable us to bear fruit. All we need to do is stay near to Him and know that whatever He designs for us will be for our best. Even when something is able to come against us or those we love God will take that pain, disappointment and sorrow and use it for our good.

It may sound crazy but today I am praying to be a tree, firmly planted beside the Living Water.

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