Strong Roots

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence indeed is the LORD.

He will be like a tree planted by water:
it sends its roots out toward a stream,
it doesn’t fear when heat comes,
and its foliage remains green.
It will not worry in a year of drought
or cease producing fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8

Here in Georgia, we’ve had a terrible drought for a few years now, and last year began serious watering bans. It’s been interesting, but sad, to see which plants have survived and which ones have succumbed to the drought. Almost everything I planted last spring, before the watering ban, died over the summer because we couldn’t water it. But the plants that already had good established roots survived. Some of them looked a little worse for the wear, but they survived, and they have perked up beautifully this spring. That’s what this verse brings to mind. Often it seems that we trust in the Lord when things are going well, but when things get tough, do we cling steadfastly to him, or do we blame him for our troubles? If we have truly put our trust in him, then the answer is that we continue to cling to him. We’ll be like those plants that survived the drought, and like the tree in this verse, and we’ll be able to withstand the drought because our roots run deep down to the living water that never runs out. The thing is, we have to make sure we have those deep roots, and that comes from a true relationship with Jesus, which, in turn, comes from spending time with him in prayer and in his Word. That’s where we get the never-ending living water, and THAT is what allows us to keep producing fruit.