The Farmer's Seed

Jeremiah 17:7-9

7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

8 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.”

For some reason, God keeps speaking to me about His love and His faithfulness through any and every situation that we go through in our lives. It’s truly hard to see beyond what’s all around us and we keep wondering why we’re going through the things that we’re going through. Let’s face it, living life hurts a lot of the time. Some people’s situations are worse than others, but we all hurt at some point. It’s not fair… it really isn’t. But, God never promised a life that was fair or easy. In fact, he even said this in John 16:33b – “…In this world you will have trouble.” If Jesus said it, you better believe it.

So, try if you will, to think of yourself as a farmer’s seed that will be planted into the ground. One day, you’re just sitting there minding your own business and all of a sudden, the Farmer picks you up and shoves you into this deep dark and dirty place. You have no idea why the Farmer would do this to you and you struggle and you begin to lose hope because what you’re going through is so hard and seems like it couldn’t possibly get any worse. Then what you would have never expected to happen, actually happens! Things get worse! While you’re in this deep, dark, dirty place the Farmer pours water on you. What’s he doing… trying to kill you? You (the seed) begins to break apart and die and you have lost hope completely. Just when you think you couldn’t take anymore, something strange begins to happen. You start growing… and you’re actually sprouting! You are now so beautiful and delicious that people just can’t get enough of you! You think, “Wow, the farmer was letting me deal with all that so that I could become what I am today: beautiful and full of fruit! He really does know what He’s doing!”

As you can see from this week’s passage, Jeremiah 17:7 says, “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.” In anything, this is number one. Jeremiah says that you will be blessed if you simply trust in the Lord. Just trust Him. Don’t worry about what’s going on around you. Ask for God’s grace to just trust Him through your difficult times. Obviously, it’s easy to trust Him in easy times… in fact, have you ever noticed that it’s in easy times in life that some people are the farthest from God? Have you ever given any thought to the possibility that God lets us go through hard times so that we will look to Him? Maybe, for some of us, it’s the only way to keep our attention. For the seed, for it to be thrown into the ground and watered is the only way it can even grow into the plant that it needs to be.

The rest of our passage in verse 8 reads: “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.” A tree that has an endless source of water never has to fear that it will run out… even when the heat comes. When its year of drought comes, it looks to the water for its strength.

Is it your year of drought? As cliché as it may be to say this, yes – Jesus Christ is your strength. He is your Eternal water source. He is the only one you can truly trust that will take away your every reason to worry about what you’re going through. You will know that God wants you to learn something good from what is happening… no matter how dark it may be. And according to God, through Jeremiah the Prophet, you will never fail to bear fruit… you will never fail to build character and become the person that God wants you to be.

Put your trust in the Lord. His Grace is sufficient.

Bry...