The prophet Jeremiah presents an interesting contrast between two states of consciousness when he says, "The man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord ... shall be like the heath in the desert," and "the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is ... shall be as a tree planted by the waters." With rare spiritual intuition, the prophet touches the springs of mental action, and bids his hearers look into the state of their own thinking if they would avoid the evils with which they seem to be contending and experience harmony.
How aptly the prophet describes the effects of material and spiritual thinking! Of material thinking, likened to the heath in the desert, he says that it "shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited." He who trusts in matter—who makes "flesh his arm" —does not recognize that good is spiritual, that God is infinite good. His capacities are restricted, because he believes that his strength, his capabilities, his supply are in matter. His universe is bounded by the evidence of the material senses. And what a narrow, limited outlook is his—"the parched places in the wilderness"!
He who "trusteth in the Lord," who looks to Spirit as the source of his being, his substance, his strength, his maintenance, is like "a tree planted by the waters." To the Hebrew writer, who was familiar with the desert, there was comfort, rest, and shelter in the thought of great palm trees growing by pools of water, or stately cedars of Lebanon with their deep roots reaching down to depths of coolness. Fed by hidden springs, they give out a wealth of refreshing shade and shelter. They reach up towards the sky, strong and free, facing the wind and the storm, and giving—always giving. The tree "shall not see when heat cometh," says the prophet, "but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit."
