Visiting grandkids takes us to Arizona every year. Driving a short distance outside of the city of Phoenix one notices that the land is a desert. Grass is sparse and there are no large trees, just small shrubs that can survive an area with little water. However, the land next to the river is green and flourishing.
The prophet Jeremiah describes self-absorbed people who do not have a relationship with God as a shrub in the desert. He tells us in Jer. 17:5-8: “Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited”. People without God live in parched places in the wilderness of sin. They are like an Arizona tumbleweed, dry and dusty, blown about without roots.
However, Jeremiah describes another person. He is not cursed but is blessed. He is not in the desert but by the waters. He is not a shrub but a tree. He is described in Jer. 17:7,8: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit”. Instead of being dry and unfruitful, the person who trusts the Lord is described as planted by the waters with deep roots, green leaves, and fruitful branches.
Do we live a dry and dusty life with no satisfaction blown about by the winds of this world? Can our life be described as a shrub in the desert? Root your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Then you will not be a shrub in the desert but a tree by the waters.
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