The Tree By The Water

Yesterday, a friend of mine told me they could not meet with me over coffee because they needed to get away and pray over somethings they are dealing with.  I asked them how can I be praying for them, and instead of getting a few prayer items I got a verse from Jeremiah.  Jeremiah 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.”  As I was studying this verse in its context to be praying for my friend I realized I need this reminder as well.  Jeremiah compares two types of trees in this passage.  If you go back to verse 6 Jeremiah speaks of the other tree. “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.” Two very different trees here.  If you were the tree, where would you want to the be, in the parched desert or the tree by the water?  Easy choice right.  So often we are the tree that is living in the parched desert. Why?  It comes down to who we are trusting.  You see the one tree that is in the parched desert is the one person who is trusting in man verses the one who is trusting in the Lord, the tree by the water.  Verse 5 Jeremiah  says, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.”  So often we either rely on others to help meet our needs or we rely on our self’s and our own strength.  When we do that we become the tree that is starving for water.  Everything needs water, and our one source of water is Christ and the way we get more of Christ is from His Word.  It’s His Word that keeps us grounded in Him and keeps us trusting in Him, and we our like the tree that is planted by the stream of water, we have an endless supply of water, of life. When we step away from God’s Word, church, we shift our focus on us and on others and that’s when we start having problems, because the heat and droughts of life are coming, and we start going back to old habits, and old thinking.  Another way we can easily move away from God’s Word is to start reading a lot of books that speak about God.  God’s Word is our water, other books that talk about God is our bread.  We cannot live on bread alone, we have to have water to survive.  Where is your tree at today? Are you in the wastelands, the desert, or is your tree drinking the sweet water of Jesus? If we are in the wastelands, move your focus and trust to the Lord and the sweet stream of Jesus will rise up next to the tree and the roots can tap into the life source of water.  If your by the stream keep your focus on the Lord, streams can dry up.