“A TREE PLANTED BY THE WATERS.”
Jeremiah explains the vigor and fruitfulness of God’s trees by a most suggestive metaphor, “They send forth their roots to the river.” God provides the water; it is a “river,” but we have to send forth “our roots” in search of it. Large trees can survive a drought that withers smaller ones because their roots go deep, and find sources of moisture that can never dry; and a strong, well-nourished Christian is proof against temptations and trials that wither feebler souls, just because his roots go deep into the water of life. He draws strength out of deep heart-intercourse with God, out of the secret study of the Word, out of private prayer, but these things he has to seek. He must go in search of the water, for the water will not come to him. There is a celebrated vine at Hampton Court that for many years disappointed the gardener’s hopes. It was quite healthy, but there were few grapes. One year, however, it was unexpectedly laden with clusters of the finest fruit. Seeking to discover the cause of this, the gardener laid bare its roots, and traced their ramifications and found that they had suddenly gone through the banks into the river Thames. It had “sent forth its roots to the river,” and thenceforth “ceased not from yielding fruit.”
This is a parable for us all. If we are to bear fruit in large abundance, we must get across to the hidden resources of God’s grace that are waiting for us to tap and that is a secret process, a secret between us and God alone. Without this deep fellowship. this secret communion with the Unseen, there will be no growth for any of us, but with this, and because of this, there will be abundant fruit—fruit even to old age. And He who is the unseen Giver, of what we unseen receive, will be glorified in us who are thus “enriched by Him unto all bountifulness causing through us thanksgiving unto Him.” “In the secret of His presence.”