Last month I was in Oregon, visiting family in Umatilla, which is a small city in eastern Oregon. To get there we flew into Portland and drove along the Columbia. That’s a pleasant drive, but one that takes you through a fairly dramatic shift in scenery as you move from the lush Willamette Valley area into the high desert of eastern Oregon.

As the scenery turned brown and the vegetation became scrub brush and tumbleweed to the south, I noticed clumps of trees right next to the river. It brought to mind both Psalm 1 and the passage below.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.
                                      Jeremiah 17:7-8 (ESV)

I’ve been thinking about this passage lately, and I’ve come to recognize it as a picture of the Christian life as it is meant to be lived.

There are a number of sayings floating about our culture that tell us about living and dealing with problems in the Christian life, such as: “God helps those who help themselves” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” The problem with such sayings is that they’re not Biblical and just not true. 

Even worse, they put a tremendous burden on people. Is it fair to say to my friend who just lost her husband of 32 years to cancer that she can handle it? Is that the message for the next friend whose 20-something year-old sister was just diagnosed with cancer or the one dealing with her own serious illness along with children with autism?

The good news is that Jesus didn’t say that to any of us. He said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” John 16:33b (ESV). Not “you will overcome,” but “I have overcome.”

In 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (ESV) Paul reports, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

And this, I think, is why God uses the analogy of the tree. The tree has no ability to handle the heat or drought by itself, just as we often cannot handle the tribulations of this world by ourselves. Only the abundant water allows the tree to thrive in such conditions, just as we can only thrive if we send out our roots through prayer and obedience to the word so that the Holy Spirit in us provides the power and grace to handle the trouble that comes our way.

 

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash