Like a Tree

Jeremiah 17:5-8

This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
JER 17:6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
JER 17:7 "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
JER 17:8 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."

Sometimes I wish that God, when he inspired men to write these Scriptures, also revealed to them exactly how they were to be interpreted and applied in specific situations... like Targums, only written by God and not by over-zealous lawmakers. I could then thumb to the section addressed specifically to my church in my time period, photocopy it, and make it available for everyone to see. No convincing, massaging, contextualizing, persuading, explaining, or setting up needed. God said it, so we have to believe it and do it. End of story. Moving on.

Of course, that wish is tainted. It's devoid of any real life-changing relationship with God. I and everyone else would simply be bowing to a new law, instead of having the law written on our hearts by the Spirit inside of us like Ezekiel prophesies. It's devoid of any real relationship with one another, as our only connection with one another is making sure that we're to the best of our abilities following the same set of laws.

But what motivates that wish is this: I anticipate that when I attepmt to leverage this Scripture on our current situation, my application will be challenged and picked apart until it has no real power to change us. Thus, if my application matched God's application, then there'd be no doubt, no challenge, no poked holes, no smoke screens. If you don't understand, you'd have to try and understand, and not because I said it, but because God said it. That's why I wish God wrote his version of the Targums.

So here's my application:

You have two type of people contrasted in this passage. First is the person who "trusts in man" and "depends on flesh for his strength." Before I get to what I think this means, or how I see this as being applicable to our current situation, let me make clear what happens to this person: they are like a "bush in the wastelands" who will "dwell in the parched places of the desert." In other words, you know that they are trusting in man and depending on flesh for their strength because, when the heat comes, they wither and dry up. You don't have to know exactly how you're "trusting in man" or "depending on flesh." The point is, if you're drying up under the heat, you are, in some way, doing both of those things. That's the point.

The second person in the passage is the person who "trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him." Of course, this person is "like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream." It remains full of life, and produces fruit, even when the heat comes. Again, just like the previous example, you don't have to know exactly what it means to "trust in the LORD" in your particular situation. All you have to know is that if you're full of life and fruit even when the heat comes, you are trusting in the LORD and putting your confidence in him.

So my application--the application that I'm sure will be strongly challenged when it is shared--is this: I look at me, and I look at those around me, and I see a bunch of bushes withering in the heat. I do not see, either as I look at myself or at those around me, one single person who is full of life and producing fruit.

Now, I see plenty of people striving to be productive. Hell, we're frantic when it comes to being productive. But we're withering. And withering people, while they can be very productive, just are unable to produce the kind of fruit that a person connected to God will produce. It's just science... or something like that.

Thus, I conclude that all of us are somehow, someway putting our trust in man and depending on flesh for our strength. I don't know how we're doing that exactly. But I see us withering. That fact is undeniable. And if I go by this passage in Jeremiah, then I'm forced to conclude that because we're withering, we're putting our trust in man and depending on flesh for strength.

At least, that's what I think.