Key scripture -“But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him” (Jeremiah 17:7).

Do you understand how important it is that no matter how difficult a trial is you should never trust in yourself to solve the problem, but instead you should always always trust in God?

The prophet Jeremiah describes what happens if you give in to the temptation to trust in man’s way to solve a problem versus the person whose trust is in God.

This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. 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 17:5-8).

Jeremiah drew a sharp comparison between the man who trusts in his own effort to solve his problem and the man who trusts in God when he cannot see the outcome. The man who trusts in God bears fruit despite the circumstances in his life. He does not shrivel when the heat comes; in fact, his roots go deeper and deeper into God’s grace the harder it gets. They are like the plants that live in an arid climate like South Africa, where the dry climate and parched land forces it to develop a root system that is far beyond a normal plant, because it has to drive its roots deeper and deeper into the soil to gain the water it needs.

Sometimes God forces us to go deeper into the grace of His love in order to build a greater foundation in our own lives. The lean dry times and the trials in your life are designed to accomplish this in you.

If you find yourself in a dry hard time, ask the Lord, Who provides the water for your soul, to give you the grace and the strength that you need today to continue to bear fruit in the desert.

Pray this – Our Precious Heavenly Father, thank You for watering my soul, for the fountains of water in the valleys, for filling the desert with pools of water. You make rivers fed by springs flow across the parched ground in my life so that I can bear fruit in the barren desert, and everyone will know and understand that it is the Lord who has done this for me. I lift my hands to you in prayer. I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for rain. I thirst for God, the living God. Because of Your Grace, I can stay serene and calm in the drought and bear fresh spiritual fruit in every season. Because of Your Grace, the spirit of heaviness from my trial is removed and I put on the garments of praise. In the Name of Jesus, The Living Water, I pray, Amen.