Monday Reflection January 13, 2020
Monday Reflection – January 13, 2020
Where is Our Trust?
All who forsake you shall be put to shame; for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord. Jeremiah 17:13
The Prophet Jeremiah outlines in chapter 17 the depth of the sins of Judah, especially the ways in which the people have clearly demonstrated misplaced trust. Rather than trustingly obeying Yahweh who has proven himself time and time again, they have opted to put their trust elsewhere. So deep is their sins that Jeremiah describes it as written with a pen of iron and engraved with the point of a diamond (vs. 1). This emphasizes the hardness and strength of Judah’s rebellion against God. The people’s heart has guilt not only written all over it, but etched into it, engraved beyond erasure.
Firstly, the people trusted in man. Hear the Lord in verse 5: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.” What a disastrous act to place our trust in failing and fallible humans. Instead, the Lord encourages us to trust in him. Indeed, the one who trusts in the Lord will be like a tree planted by the waters, whose leaf will be green (vs. 8).
Secondly, the people trusted in their own heart. To this the Lord says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve” (vs. 9-10). Trusting the heart is just another way of trusting in man. We know that our hearts deceive us very often, presenting heart-fulfilment as the key to happiness. What we desire is often not what we need.
Thirdly, the people trusted in riches. To this the Lord says, “Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means. It will leave him in the midst of his days, and in the end he will prove to be a fool” (vs. 11). This is a proverb meant to show the foolishness of trusting in riches. Not all riches are condemned; only those gained by unjust means. It is the pursuit of riches at all cost, irrespective of the methods or effects on others.
In the context of all this, the people failed to trust in God. Jeremiah declares, “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust. For they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord (vs. 13). Yahweh was the true and confident hope of Israel, even if many turned away from him. Those who turned from him would be noted and recorded and would come to shame for foolishly rejecting him. Of note is that the people were previously accused of this same thing in chapter 2:13, “My people have committed a compound sin: they’ve walked out on me, the fountain of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns—cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves (The Message).
Today we must ask ourselves, where is our trust? In whom or what have we placed our trust? Like the Psalmist, may our sincere and firm declaration be: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but our trust is in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7).
Jermaine Gibson