Whose Trust Is the Lord (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

Do you ever read a verse, a verse perhaps you have read many times, and you are stopped, stopped to go back and read it again, and once more? Sometimes, a verse really sticks out to us, and we know that we are not supposed to miss the message that God so lovingly wrote for His children, for us.  Some might say that God no longer speaks, but oh how He still speaks.  What a blessing that God’s voice is still active, and that the very Word of God, is at our fingertips!  This happened to me late last night with Jeremiah 17:7-8.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord

And whose trust is the Lord.

For he will be like a tree planted by the water,

That extends its roots by a stream

And will not fear when the heat comes;

But its leaves will be green,

And it will not be anxious in a year of drought

Nor cease to yield fruit.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord.”  That little word is stuck out to me and made me reread so I didn’t miss it, that little is.  I think it was this particular version that stuck out to me, “And whose trust is the Lord” and made me notice. Here are some what other translations say, “And whose hope is the Lord,” “whose confidence indeed is the Lord,” and “And whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord.”  What really stuck out to me besides that little is was that it was not followed by the word in.  Perhaps with the other words being different, like confidence and hope, following trust, I didn’t notice the missing in.  

            God is not just someone we can trust, someone we can hope in, someone we can be confident in. He is our trust. He is our hope. He is our confidence, our confident expectation. And the words that follow are a beautiful illustration of what our lives look like when we not only trust Him, but when He is our trust. We will be like a well-watered, well-rooted tree.  We are nourished and protected.  Hard times still come, but we can rest in Him because He is faithful.