Peter Hoover

How many times shall one learn, the hard way, with pain and inner distress, to not depend on humans?

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,” wrote the weeping prophet, Jeremiah, “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.”¹

For as sweet as it tastes when the balm of fellowship suddenly graces the soul, the bitterer the devastation when suddenly withdrawn and irretrievably swept away.

Depending on others, depending on one’s self, all the same thing. In a moment, in one fell swoop, it may all disappear—and it will.

Jeremiah had already learned his lesson well. Sharing a word of the LORD to the leaders of Judah, his opponents, tired of hearing what he had to say, “put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern. It had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.²

Stuck in the mud, helpless, abandoned, no way to call for help but to the LORD, he could do nothing other than wait and hope on him.

The LORD heard and acted.

Ebed-Melech, a African man, heard what had happened to Jeremiah and “took some old rags and worn-out clothes and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. Then he said to Jeremiah, ‘Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.’ Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern.³

For the moment, Jeremiah survived. Only one betrayal after the next followed until—totally against his wishes—people carried him to Egypt where he died.

“Cursed is the one who depends on humans,” but, through his long troublesome life, fraught with loneliness, one betrayal after the next, and deep disappointment, he managed to write: “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.”⁴

How long will it take for me to depend on none other than the LORD?