“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him” Jeremiah 17:7

During a severe drought in South Africa a school was utilizing a well in order to water the parched playing fields. The townsfolk didn’t know the school had its own well and assumed the principal was using water from the local reservoir and disregarding the water restrictions imposed by the municipality. People were furious and a number of concerned citizens phoned the school and complained.

It was therefore necessary to inform the public that the school wasn’t squandering the town’s meagre water supply but was using underground water. The principal had a signboard prepared and instructed the school handyman to erect it in a prominent position alongside the main road leading in and out of the town. He assumed that the townsfolk would then read the signboard and everything would be hunky-dory. But things don’t always work out as planned. When the townsfolk read the signboard they thought the principal was making fun of the situation. This is what the signboard said, “All the water in this establishment has been passed by the Principal.”

Now it’s humorous when people make these mistakes but it isn’t funny when people make serious life threatening mistakes. Jeremiah addresses the person who makes a life threatening mistake when he speaks of the “one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.  He will be … cursed … like a bush in the wastelands … in the parched places of the desert” Jeremiah 17:5-6.

If you’re making this mistake, i.e., if you’re trusting in your own strength and not the Lord, it’s never too late to rectify the situation. Jeremiah tells us that if a person “trusts in the Lord … he will be like a tree planted by the water … it does not fear when heat comes … it has no worries in a year of drought” Jeremiah 17:7-8.