Count Your Blessings!
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(7) “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. (8) They 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 17:7-8)
When we have blessings in our lives, it is not by accident but by design – the Lord’s design. Blessings may be big (having a celebrity knock on your door to announce your winning the latest Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes – this is yet to happen, though I have hope) or they may be little (finding the TV remote before your spouse comes in to watch their favorite show, and avoid ‘the stare of doom’ – this happens on occasion, sometimes with ‘the stare’ being unavoidable).
The prophet Jeremiah, in receiving God’s proclamation on the ‘Day of Disaster’ for Israel/Judah, tells us in Jeremiah 17:7-8, that those who trust in the Lord will be the ones truly blessed, and they have Faith in God and His promises. The ‘Bad-News Bearer’ (or the Weeping Prophet) he is, Jeremiah does portray the blessed in a beautiful form, a live, growing and vibrant tree; strong and able to stand with deep roots.
Jeremiah does have some bleakness in his portrayal for the tree, though. The tree is under constant attack; it must stand when it is hot, or when there is no rainfall to feed the stream its roots are in. However, those roots are deeply in the ground of Faithfulness, and thus though the heat may seem unbearable, and there is no sign of water in the creek bed, the tree still stands and its leaves stay green. Perhaps the leaves get a little droopy, the green is not as deep, or the tree doesn’t grow as much fruit, but it still stands and lives where it has been planted.
The tree stays alive and vibrant because it is where the water is, and where it will return to. Jeremiah’s comparison of the tree to those who have Faith and trust in Jesus is to show that we Christians are not immune to the heat or the drought (and living in Florida we know about heat and drought). Christians are not immune to the trials of life, but when we face those trials, we can stand rooted in our Faith and be immovable. We will suffer, and perhaps not be the best witness or be able to serve the Lord as we desire, but we remain in the Lord and with the Lord.
There are always blessings, big and small, daily, that we can rejoice in. In our blessings we may not always in ‘happy’ circumstances, but we can recognize them as being blessings nevertheless. Israel falling to Babylon was not a happy occasion, but it was a blessing to the Israelites as it brought them back to the Lord, and it gave us the examples of steadfast Faith, by Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The blessings that Daniel (in Daniel 6), being thrown in a lion’s den, was spared by ‘an angel of the Lord’ (quite likely a Christophany or an Old Testament appearance of Jesus), or the 3 ‘pep boys’ (in Daniel 3) being thrown in the furnace (a multi-story foundry, for metallurgy) and having a ‘fourth’ person join them to protect them (likely another Christophany).
Blessings often don’t come from a scenario of happiness but of trepidation and concern. In both of the examples in Daniel, they came from a point when many may felt hopeless. The exile to Babylon likely had many feel hopeless. But when the Faithful, despite the dire circumstances, remain Faithfulness and hope, blessings are often found. Find the blessings in all the circumstances you face, and appreciate them no matter how big or little they are!
