Hope

Hope

This is what the Lord says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats where no one lives. But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:5-8

If I was thinking of launching a landscaping company and I asked my children whether I should locate it in the desert or next to a riverbank, they would say, “Well, that’s a no-brainer!” The first location would spell doom; the second would predict success. Each of us has a similar choice about where we will locate the landscape of our life. Will we place our hope in mere humans, or will we place it in the Lord? The way we live out the answer to that question concludes whether our hearts will be empty or full.

“Where do you want to place your hope?” Jeremiah asks us. “In a fallible person who might live for about eighty years, or in the all-powerful Creator who lives forever?” How we answer his question determines whether we will look like a measly, undersized bush or a flourishing plant. It determines whether we will live a life that’s unproductive or a life that’s abundant. Do we want to be depleted and empty, or do we want to be full? I vote for full.

Father,

Thanks for vivid descriptions of things like shrubs, trees, deserts, and riverbanks that remind us to put our trust in you. Amen.