What a week

This Wednesday at chapel a pastor from a local church spoke. He started off by describing the a desert hike he had gone on last year. It was 120 degrees and they came upon this Arar tree with fruit. Of course they all asked the guide if they could have some. So they grabbed the fruit and then cut it open and it was empty except for cobwebs and the little that was in there was poison. Jeremiah 17:5-6.
This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

This bush/tree look good on the outside but then on the inside it is full of cobwebs and poison. But then there is another tree described in verses 7 and 8:

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

He 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."

What's the difference between the two trees? Simple. One tree is rooted in the river and the other is not. Am I rooted in the river? Rooted in God? Or is it just a good superficial look even with "fruit."

He posed these questions: Where does your heart go to find pleasure, when there's a season of drought? What is it that cause you to worry, to be afraid?

It's your roots that determine who you are.

While I know with all my heart that I am rooted in the Lord I began to prune. Are there any places where I see this Arar fruit budding? Places where instead of trusting in the Lord I'm putting up this front? Then once I found those, to begin the process of hacking the bad branches off (John 15:1-2).


"Anything fake is poisonous."
_the pastor's little daughter