Planted & Fruitful

“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 has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the LORD, search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:7-10.

These verses at first glance do not seem to transition smoothly. However, at second glance I find that it serves as a choice for all of us. We can live in truth when rooted in our faith or we can react based upon the emotions of our hearts and our own wisdom. Our heart tells us we will never find that partner, and our mind convinces us we will never get out of our circumstances. We begin calculating without God and applying our own wisdom to a situation where we lack the total picture. We become rooted in our fears and discouragement instead of being rooted in the One who has the ability and promise to give us His best. We pray for His best but lack the trust and confidence to wait upon it.

‘If you think with your feelings, you can fall into all manner of false conclusions. Feelings are supposed to serve and strengthen us. Left to themselves, however, they enslave and deplete us.’ Me, Myself & Lies, p. 57. False conclusions sound like this: ‘I will never be successful.’ ‘There is no way the outcome will be …..’ ‘I have looked at the details of my situation and my goal will never be achieved on the path I am traveling.’ God sees the motivation of our heart and the thoughts in our mind. He is well aware of our unbelief and lack of confidence in certain areas of our lives.

Jeremiah states that the LORD will reward a person based on their conduct and deeds. This means every time our mind thinks and our mouth speaks in conflict of believing God for His best, we delay or miss certain rewards that God has set aside for us. We must allow ourselves to be planted by the Living Waters anticipating the droughts in life but choosing to believe in the flow of promise and blessings. We must be grounded in our faith and confident in His wisdom, not our own.