February 15: Trust in the Lord
♫ Music:
Day 2 - Thursday, February 15
Title: Trust in the Lord
Scripture: Jeremiah 17:5-10
Thus says the Lord,
“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the Lord.
“For he will be like a bush in the desert
And will not see when prosperity comes,
But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,
A land of salt without inhabitant.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord
And whose trust is the Lord.
“For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
That extends its roots by a stream
And will not fear when the heat comes;
But its leaves will be green,
And it will not be anxious in a year of drought
Nor cease to yield fruit.
“The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?
“I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give to each man according to his ways,
According to the results of his deeds.
Poetry: Simultaneity
By M. Vasalis
[Translated by Fred Lessing and David Young]
Six in the evening, in the kitchen
The little dog with pricked-up ears,
the potatoes boiling on the stove,
the wooden tick of the clock—the sky
far and gray-blue and the jewelweeds,
tall as people. The pasture
with uneven tussocks and their shadows,
like drawings in a cave. And the knifelike light
that burns through the leave, a glittering mystery.
And I—another creature, watching it.
It blends together and it doesn’t change.
Oh Lord. I feel that something ought
to be made clear to me. That I’ve been granted time,
and yet, however overwhelmed I am,
something is missing that would help me say: this
order,
however slipshod it may be: I see it, I’m awakened.
Forgive my being deaf and being blind,
and hold me in your greatness—I am small,
but have, as well, too many tentacles
that grope in the different-being Being.
SANCTIFICATION
The journey of sanctification is, among many other things, a cyclical and dependent journey. It is cyclical, because in this life, we will never reach perfection and must constantly strive between obedience and disobedience, spiraling up and up toward greater obedience and lesser disobedience as we approach heaven. It is also a dependent journey, because we are unable to sanctify ourselves through our own strength, and must rely on the strength of Another in order to succeed. Consider now Van Gogh’s Cypresses as you meditate on the passage from the prophet Jeremiah. In the image Jeremiah presents, he distinguishes between two types of trees (and only two): the one in the desert that withers in the heat and the drought, and the one by the stream that flourishes free from anxiety and fear. Notice both the cycle and the dependence that these trees must live through. Year after year, the “bush in the desert...will not see when prosperity comes” while the “tree planted by the water...extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes…[or] be anxious in a year of drought.” Over and over both trees are tested, and over and over one perseveres while the other grows weaker. The seasons come and go, the cycle of nature passes on and on, and the trees continue to be dependent on their surroundings, and grow stronger or weaker as time goes on.
In the Lenten season—a season marked by its focus on fasting and sacrifice—it may seem more proper to emulate the tree in the desert, rather than the tree by the stream. After all, Lent represents Christ’s time spent in the desert before his temptation by the devil, when he was hungry and alone. Why, then, on this second day of Lent, do we draw attention to the richly watered tree, when it appears we should be drawing our attention to the tree of the desert, as Christ was in the desert? Christ did spend forty days in the desert, but the purpose of his withdrawal from the world was in order to grow stronger in his communion with the Father, not to weaken it. The paradoxes of God are one of this life’s greatest mysteries: somehow, the last will be first, the rich shall be poor, and as the apostle Paul said, the weak shall be strong.
But how do we become weak? Surely it is not by becoming like the tree in the desert, who “will live in stony wastes in the wilderness!” No: it is in this time of fasting and sacrifice that we become more like the tree by the stream, given wholly over to the life-giving water, and in every season more assured of the strength of our roots, not reliant on our own ability to live, but trusting in the fountain of everlasting life. By retreating to the desert, we firmly plant our hearts and minds in the Gospel of Christ, and by doing so, allow the Spirit of God to fill us with life.
Prayer:
Lord, as we enter into this Lenten season, remind us of the true reason why we fast: in order to deepen our roots in the truth of your Gospel, and not for any earthly gain. Keep our hearts repentant and receptive to the work you have prepared for us.
Amen
Ellie Martin
Academic Specialist
Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University
Information about the artists, poets, lyrics, artwork, composers, and musicians in the Lent Project may be found on the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Art:
Cypresses
Vincent Van Gogh
1889
Oil on canvas
73 x 93.4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Cypresses was painted in June 1889, shortly after Van Gogh began his year-long stay at an asylum located in Saint-Rémy, France. The subject of the Cypress trees, which he found "beautiful as regards to lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk," both captivated and challenged the artist: "It’s the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it’s one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine."
About the Artist:
Vincent Willem Van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Post-Impressionist painter of Dutch origin whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, Van Gogh died aged 37 from a gunshot wound generally accepted to be self-inflicted. Van Gogh did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. After discovering the French Impressionists, his work grew brighter in color and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style that became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.
About the Music:
“Methuselah” Tree from the album Corduroy Road
About the Composer/Performer:
A Pennsylvanian by birth, Keith Kenniff (b. 1981) is an honors graduate of Boston’s esteemed Berklee College of Music best-known as the dulcet ambient/electronic artist Helios and post-classical piano minimalist musician Goldmund. Together with his wife Hollie, Keith also records as Mint Julep, and the two released their debut album Save Your Season that the NME coined as “unquestionably beautiful.” A succession of albums under those various aliases has made Kenniff a well-respected artist of discerning critics. His music has been widely used in film, TV, and advertising for corporate clients such as Apple, Facebook, Google, Paramount, MTV and Warner Brothers.
About the Poet:
M. Vasalis (1909-1998), the pseudonym of Margaretha Droogleever Fortuyn-Leenmans, was a Dutch poet and psychiatrist. Vasalis studied medicine and anthropology at Leiden University and in 1939 established herself as psychiatrist in Amsterdam. Vasalis made her poetry debut in 1940 with the collection entitled Parks and Deserts. She wrote traditional poems that were often characterized by the use of personification and anthropomorphism. Her poems often begin with a series of observations of nature that end in self-reflection. During her lifetime, Vasalis’ work was awarded multiple times.
About the Devotional Writer:
A San Francisco Bay area native, Ellie Martin moved to Los Angeles to attend the Torrey Honors Institute and complete her bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies. Currently, she is an Academic Specialist working for the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola. Her interests include reading Russian literature, Existential philosophy, knitting, playing the piano, and trying as much third wave coffee as she can get her hands on. Ellie lives in Tustin, California, with her husband, Kyle.