Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Like a tree
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 never stop producing fruit.
Jeremiah 17:7-8
Trust.
I'm having a hard time finding any spiritual trouble/sin/issue/difficulty/etc, in my life, that doesn't point back to trust.
He created the heavens and the earth. He created the sun, the moon, and the stars. He separated the earth from the waters and the heavens from the earth. He cares for the sparrow and the flowers of the field. He created me...and yet I struggle to trust Him with my life.
Why this fear?
I think, in some ways, it is because I think about God in human terms.
We are human. We hurt each other. We fail each other. We are perfectly imperfect and our flaws are often the source of our tears, hurt, frustration, and pain. Our relationships are most often performance based. We tend to love those who love us back. We love those who treat us well and do nice things for and with us. My human experience causes me to want to please God, with my thoughts, words, and actions, so that He will like me and accept me.
He is God. He exists outside of time, space, and matter while at the same time existing inside time, space, and matter...a mind bending paradox...but I still envision Him in human terms, which ends up being very limiting. He is omnipresent, yet he can "enter" a place...entering a place carries an implication that He was not there. He is omniscient, yet he asks me to talk to Him, to open my heart to Him, to lay the burdens He already knows I carry at His feet.
Trust.
All He really wants me to do is trust Him...it sounds so simple.
Abba, I bring you my brokenness. Father, please work in my heart so that I might trust you more.
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The Scent of Water by Naomi Zacharias is an excellent book. You might enjoy reading it. Here is a segment from her book that sort of goes along with your post:
ReplyDelete"For there is hope for a tree... Though its roots grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant." Job 14: 7-9
"When your leaves have fallen in crumbles, no longer providing shade for others or yourself; when there are no blooms on your branches; when you are stripped of the branches themselves that once gave perceived heavenly height and balance; when you are but a stump that has died in the ground, you do little more than take up space. You don't bring fruit, beauty, or canopy but are something to stumble over or stub a toe on, something to be altogether ignored. Life has essentially abandoned you.
Unless, until there is water. No... the promise is that at even the SCENT of water, our roots, like that of a tree, will awaken and extend themselves - at the very HINT of its refreshment and sustenance. Ah, the perfume of hope that breathes life into the weary and wounded."
Jenny,
DeleteI find that the concept of the scent of water causing growth to be true. It's been part of my life for the past two years. When Sara and Miranda died, spiritually I was little more than a stump. The tragedy of losing them put me in a place where I could either reject or question God or seek Him. For a long time it didn't feel like He was all that close, but I could smell His "scent" and it created a hunger and longing in me to know Him better.
It's been a long journey.
I started my first big step yesterday. I'm going back to school to get a second major, this one in Biblical Studies.
Thanks for the excerpt. I'll look the book up. :)
Chad