“But BLESSED is the man…

…who trusts in the LORD,

whose confidence is in Him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream;

It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:7-8

We all want to be blessed. I suppose it is part of human nature to want the good in life, and there is hardly any wrong in that. We loathe it when things get bad, and we look for a way to blame someone else for our predicaments. More often than not, when we can find no mortal man to blame, we turn to God and say, “You did this to me!” in our most irrational state of mind.

But what does the Lord say? Believe it or not, He wants to bless us, to keep us with Him at all times. He wants so much for us to be like the ‘tree planted by the water’ – the one that will not wither in the scorching heat, the one that will not cease to bear fruit.

And there IS a way to attain that blessing. In Deuteronomy 10:12, He tells us just what to do:

…what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul

It is not always easy to walk in His ways, and sometimes we wander off the straight and narrow path, but He has given us His Holy Spirit to be our Counsellor and Friend. If we are willing to live our lives wholeheartedly for Him, and if we are willing to surrender even the smallest area of our lives to Him, then serving the LORD ‘with all your heart and with all your soul’ will not be so impossible anymore.

The ‘year of drought’ can be equated to the hard times that we have, all those things that we would categorize as “Bad Things That Should Not Happen To Good People Like Me”. Notice how God does not promise us a problem-free life. What He does tell us is that, even in the face of trouble, we will still be able to stand tall and continue to ‘bear fruit’. This can and will happen when we decide to place our full confidence and faith in God, because He will be in absolute control, and everything He does will be for our good, although we may not realise it immediately.

So when the heat comes and burns you, what will you do?

Will you blame God for it, or will you trust in Him with unwavering faith and confidence?

It is YOUR choice.

God bless! (: