Day 3 · Wednesday
Roots in August
Jeremiah 17:5–8
You Can Hear with Joy, but the Harvest Tells the Truth.
Read
Jeremiah 17:5–8 · ESV
5Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
7“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.
8He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Reflect
The heat did not kill him. The heat told the truth about him.
Any plant can look alive in April. Only roots survive August.
Walk a Missouri field in April and every green thing looks the same. The wheat is green. The weeds are green. The volunteer corn that sprang up in the gravel by the road is green, and taller than all of it. No one can tell you yet which will stand.
Then August comes.
The sun climbs and stays. The rain quits. The ditches crack. One by one, the things that sprang up fastest lie down in the dust. Not because the sun is cruel, but because the sun is honest. It reaches down into the ground and asks every plant one question: Where are your roots?
That is the rocky soil. It received the word "immediately" and "with joy." It was the tallest green thing in the field in April. "Yet he has no root in himself," and when tribulation came, he fell away. The heat did not kill him. The heat told the truth about him.
Jeremiah shows us the other plant. "He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Look closely. The tree is not spared August. The same sun beats on it. The difference is underground. Its roots have found a river the drought cannot reach.
Friend, you will not be measured by your best Sunday. You will be measured by your August. The diagnosis, the betrayal, the empty bank account, the cost of saying Christ's name out loud. On that day no one will ask how high you sprang. They will only see whether you are still green.
And roots are not grown in August. They are grown in the quiet months when no one is watching. In the Word opened before the sun is up. In prayers no one hears. In obedience no one applauds. Send them down now. Send them toward the stream.
Any plant can look alive in April. Only roots survive August.
Respond
If August came for you this week, what would it find under the surface, and what hidden habit will send your roots toward the stream?
Write your answer in the Echo Church app. It saves with each day.
Pray
Lord, I do not want to be the tallest thing in the field in April and gone by August. Send my roots down to Your stream while no one is watching. When the heat comes, keep me green and bearing fruit. Amen.
