Jeremiah 17:5-8 – Discerning Disillusionment's Trap
5 Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
6
For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.
7
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
8
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not [c]fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
– Jeremiah 17: 5-8, New King James Version
“It should not be possible for Christians to be disillusioned," argues Gene Edward Veith Jr. in Loving God with All Your Mind. "It's We should have no illusions in the first place. Our faith is in Jesus Christ alone.”
One of the interesting places the Bible offers to help us see as faith sees its is Jeremiah 17:5-6. I almost missed it. Warnings against trusting in men, as Jeremiah 17:5 starts out, are so common in the Bible as to be almost a trope. Their frequency, however, does not dilute their Truth or their necessity.
I need multiple reminders not to trust in men. I need them because all men are made in God's image. Some of my craving for Him result in gravitating toward what I see of Him in other people. This attraction, this latching on, often happens without the necessary caveat that men are but pale reflections of His image and His character.
I need multiple reminders not to trust in men because, while God looks on the heart, I look at appearances and construct my own story. While I have some awareness of the tangle of my own mixed motives and my failure to carry even those through with consistency, I do not have a similarly thorough understanding of my neighbor. If he or she shimmers with the sheen of victory in an area where I have struggled, or where I need help at the moment, I am likely to put an unwarranted level of trust in people.
Given the sticky tendencies of my heart's hope in humans, disillusionment is as inevitable as Veith says it is unchristian. Each time we become aware that we have placed our latest messianic aspirations on someone who is unable to live up to them, this is an opportunity to trust anew in Christ for the aspect of His glory, his character, we may not have known we craved before.
By this confession and resulting mercy and grace, the alchemy of the Holy Arborist transforms us from Jeremiah 17:6's shrub in the desert to the tree planted by living water that produces its fruit in season which is the fixation of both Jeremiah 17:8 and Psalm 1:3.
But the bud of faith that I missed before the full fruitfulness Jeremiah 17:8 is in verse six. People on a cycle from sappy, soaring hope in the latest person to crusty, burned over disillusionment miss something, Jeremiah says. Even as the weeping prophet, Jeremiah's eyes are clear enough to warn us that in over-correcting disillusionment we will not see good when it comes.
Putting people in a role too big for them, using them to try to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts, we will spend so much time listing the ways in which they have failed and resolving, yet again, that we would rather move out into the wilderness then trust them that we are preoccupied when they serve as God's reflection and instrument. Don't bother me with grace. I'm busy grousing.
The Christian replanted in Christ's living water doesn't live for such self-centered ruminations. He or she drops fruit. This fruit not only renews the life of the tree, it feeds others. Rooted and rerouted in Christ, we are so thoroughly provided for in Him that we strengthen the passerby without lasting consideration as to whether they can hold up our hopes.
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
6
For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.
7
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
8
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not [c]fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
– Jeremiah 17: 5-8, New King James Version
“It should not be possible for Christians to be disillusioned," argues Gene Edward Veith Jr. in Loving God with All Your Mind. "It's We should have no illusions in the first place. Our faith is in Jesus Christ alone.”
One of the interesting places the Bible offers to help us see as faith sees its is Jeremiah 17:5-6. I almost missed it. Warnings against trusting in men, as Jeremiah 17:5 starts out, are so common in the Bible as to be almost a trope. Their frequency, however, does not dilute their Truth or their necessity.
I need multiple reminders not to trust in men. I need them because all men are made in God's image. Some of my craving for Him result in gravitating toward what I see of Him in other people. This attraction, this latching on, often happens without the necessary caveat that men are but pale reflections of His image and His character.
I need multiple reminders not to trust in men because, while God looks on the heart, I look at appearances and construct my own story. While I have some awareness of the tangle of my own mixed motives and my failure to carry even those through with consistency, I do not have a similarly thorough understanding of my neighbor. If he or she shimmers with the sheen of victory in an area where I have struggled, or where I need help at the moment, I am likely to put an unwarranted level of trust in people.
Given the sticky tendencies of my heart's hope in humans, disillusionment is as inevitable as Veith says it is unchristian. Each time we become aware that we have placed our latest messianic aspirations on someone who is unable to live up to them, this is an opportunity to trust anew in Christ for the aspect of His glory, his character, we may not have known we craved before.
By this confession and resulting mercy and grace, the alchemy of the Holy Arborist transforms us from Jeremiah 17:6's shrub in the desert to the tree planted by living water that produces its fruit in season which is the fixation of both Jeremiah 17:8 and Psalm 1:3.
But the bud of faith that I missed before the full fruitfulness Jeremiah 17:8 is in verse six. People on a cycle from sappy, soaring hope in the latest person to crusty, burned over disillusionment miss something, Jeremiah says. Even as the weeping prophet, Jeremiah's eyes are clear enough to warn us that in over-correcting disillusionment we will not see good when it comes.
Putting people in a role too big for them, using them to try to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts, we will spend so much time listing the ways in which they have failed and resolving, yet again, that we would rather move out into the wilderness then trust them that we are preoccupied when they serve as God's reflection and instrument. Don't bother me with grace. I'm busy grousing.
The Christian replanted in Christ's living water doesn't live for such self-centered ruminations. He or she drops fruit. This fruit not only renews the life of the tree, it feeds others. Rooted and rerouted in Christ, we are so thoroughly provided for in Him that we strengthen the passerby without lasting consideration as to whether they can hold up our hopes.
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