Trouble or Peace – Which Will I Choose?
Hello, friend! Today, I have a passage to share with you that has given me a lot to chew on lately.
My title is, obviously, rhetorical. I choose peace over trouble, every single time. Duh. Or do I?
Jeremiah 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.
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 is green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, not will cease from yielding fruit.”
Now, context: the Lord is pronouncing judgment on Israel for choosing to serve idols instead of him. They put their faith in man’s handmade things rather than the God that provided their every need and delivered from the hands of oppressors and those seeking harm against them, who gave them a land of their own and abundantly blessed it. But I don’t do that, do I? I don’t carve wood or gold or silver into a shape I dreamed up, and then pray and offer food or incense or children to it, right?
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength…” Ah – there it is.
This passage makes me think of David expressing what it felt like to keep sin to himself. In Psalm 32, he describes it this way: “When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer.” When we hold sin to ourselves instead of acknowledging it and asking for the forgiveness we need, we are not trusting in God. This applies to many areas – worries, doubts, fears, concerns, all these arise and hold sway when we are holding onto our own selves, to flesh, for strength and stability. When we put it on ourselves to carry our burdens and to provide our needs. Friend, we were not made for that.
We are plants that need living waters to root deep and spread strong, fruitful branches overhead. The source of those living waters? Jeremiah 17:13 “…because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.” Revelation 22:1-5 shows us an image of the river of the water of life flowing from God’s own throne. In John 7:38, Christ told the Samaritan woman that he who believes in him, out of his heart would flow rivers of that water.
The psalms often use the description of the tree to describe the blessed man. Psalm 1, 115, and 128 in particular follow this pattern. A fruit that is born when one is full of the Spirit is peace – “…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”. Philippians 4:6-7 Peace comes when we give everything over to God, when we leave in his mighty hands all the troubles and cares and sorrows that will only clog our hearts and weigh us down, making us ill and unprofitable. We were not designed to carry all of that. We were made to be nourished and strengthened by God’s hand, not our own.
So, is it just people who worship statues that can become cursed? No, friend. It’s me when I choose to rely on my own strength and will-power to try to keep my world balanced and stable. It’s me when I hold onto my doubts and concerns instead of giving them up to be free of them. It’s me when I refuse to take five minutes to speak with my Lord when my world is busy and I can’t seem to give up the time, even when I know that it will make that laundry list look much more doable once I do.
My spirit has been feeling clogged and dry and unsettled for a few weeks now; I think I’ve landed on my issue. Let him have those worries, friend, no matter how small they seem or how much you think you should be able to handle them. He doesn’t care about their size; he knows that even the small ones will build up and pile on one another. So lay them on him. Take five minutes to tell him, and breathe easier and stand taller. See what peace really feels like.
In Christian love, Jo.
