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“Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:7-8, NRSV)
Jeremiah’s promise
What does it mean to have “leaves that do not wither”? At first glance, Jeremiah’s image might suggest a life free from hardship, a life untouched by disappointment, loss, or suffering. Yet a closer reading reveals something quite different. The tree remains green not because drought never comes, but because its roots are drawing life from a source that drought cannot reach.
This is the heart of Jeremiah’s promise. The prophet does not say that those who trust in the Lord will avoid heat and drought. In fact, he explicitly says the opposite. The heat comes. The drought arrives. What distinguishes this tree is not its circumstances but its source of nourishment. Its roots reach deep into the stream, enabling it to endure and continue bearing fruit even when conditions are harsh.
Jeremiah’s image offers an important corrective to assumptions that can easily find their way into our faith. We sometimes imagine that God’s blessing should protect us from severe hardship. Yet that is not the testimony of Scripture. Abraham knew uncertainty. Joseph endured betrayal and imprisonment. Hannah lived through years of sorrow and unanswered longing. David faced persecution. Jeremiah himself suffered rejection. Again and again, Scripture presents faithful people whose trust in God did not spare them from adversity.
Italian scholar and reformer Olympia Morata (1526-1555) provides a compelling illustration of this truth. Born into the cultured world of Renaissance Ferrara, Morata enjoyed educational opportunities that were extraordinary for a woman of her time. A gifted scholar, she became known for her learning and participated in the vibrant intellectual life of the court.
Yet after embracing evangelical and Reformed convictions during a period of increasing religious tension and persecution, her life took a very different course. The years that followed brought displacement, material loss, insecurity, and chronic illness. Her surviving letters reveal a woman whose understanding of Scripture sustained her through these trials and shaped her understanding of Christian identity, suffering, endurance, and hope.
A season of drought
One of the most revealing examples appears in a letter written to her sister Vittoria from Heidelberg in August 1554. By this point, Morata and her husband had already paid a significant price for their evangelical convictions. Forced to leave Italy as pressures on reform-minded Christians increased, they eventually settled in the German city of Schweinfurt. There they became caught up in the political and religious conflicts that engulfed the Holy Roman Empire. During the siege and destruction of the city, they endured fourteen months of continual distress. Their city was bombarded and eventually burned. Her husband was captured. They lost nearly all their possessions. Illness, displacement, and ongoing persecution followed.
By any measure, Morata was living through a season of drought. Yet it was precisely in these years of upheaval that the depth of her roots became visible. Rather than dwelling on what had been taken from her, she reflected on God’s grace in sustaining her through it. “Through the grace of God I did not care about losing everything,” she wrote. She went on to say that she was “happier to suffer like this and be a true member of Christ than if I had the whole world.”
These are extraordinary words. They do not come from someone untouched by suffering. Nor do they reflect a denial of suffering’s reality. Morata knew exactly what she had lost. She knew the fear, uncertainty, grief, and physical hardship brought by war and displacement. Yet she viewed these experiences through the lens of her identity in Christ.
Her language reflects the deep influence of Paul’s theology. Like Paul, she understood suffering not necessarily as a sign of God’s absence, but as part of faithful participation in the life of Christ. The loss of worldly security did not destroy her faith. Instead, it revealed where that faith had been rooted all along.
A foundation for hope
This brings us back to Jeremiah’s tree.
The tree’s strength does not lie in favourable conditions. Its strength lies in its roots. Hidden beneath the surface, they reach a source of life that remains available regardless of what is happening above ground.
The same was true for Morata. Outwardly, the evidence appeared discouraging. A city destroyed. Possessions gone. Persistent illness. An uncertain future. Yet beneath those visible realities lay something deeper. Her life was anchored in Christ and nourished by Scripture. The drought was real, but it could not cut her off from the source of life.
That is why Jeremiah’s image remains so powerful. The prophet does not deny hardship, nor does he present faith as a guarantee of comfort or success. Instead, he points to a different foundation for hope. Those who trust in the Lord are connected to a source of strength beyond their immediate circumstances. Their confidence rests not in stable conditions but in God’s enduring faithfulness.
This perspective is especially important in a culture that often measures blessing by outward success. When life is going well, it is easy to assume that our roots are deep. Drought reveals whether they truly are. Seasons of uncertainty expose the foundations on which our lives have been built.
For many of us, drought takes different forms. It may be illness, bereavement, disappointment, vocational uncertainty, fractured relationships, or unexpected change. Sometimes the heat arrives suddenly; at other times it lingers for years. In such moments, Jeremiah reminds us that flourishing is not the absence of hardship. Flourishing is remaining connected to the God who sustains us within it.
Olympia Morata’s life bears witness to this reality. She knew seasons of intellectual flourishing and opportunity. Yet when persecution, loss, displacement, and illness stripped away many of the securities she once enjoyed, her roots remained fixed in Christ. God’s preservation amid circumstances that often seemed hopeless became for Morata evidence not of her own strength, but of God's faithfulness and power.
Jeremiah's image of the tree invites us to adopt the same perspective. The promise is not that heat and drought will never come. The promise is that those whose trust is in the Lord can continue to bear fruit even when they do. The question, then, is not whether difficult seasons will arrive, but whether our roots are drawing life from the stream that does not run dry.
