The prophet Jeremiah paints vivid pictures of what life is like for those who trust in the Lord and those who don’t. For most of us, I suspect, that is not either/or, but rather both/and; sometimes we trust in God’s presence, and sometimes we ignore it all together. From time to time we know what it feels like to “live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land,” and “like a shrub in the desert.” Or as the psalmist describes it, “like chaff which the wind blows away,” when our eyes are closed to the reality of the Divine Presence indwelling and enfolding us and all creation. Our hearts long for relief, but we look for it in all the wrong places.

When, however, we come to “trust in the Lord, when [our] trust is the Lord, [we] shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. [Our tree] shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of the drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.” What a joy that refreshment brings when we can relax in God’s love, knowing deep within that we are God’s children and that nothing can separate us from that Love.

When our experience of the Beloved encourages us that we have nothing to fear, that whatever life brings our way, the Holy One will use for good, for us and for the whole world, we will come to trust that, as Richard Rohr assures us, Everything Belongs.