The Two Trees on Maple Street

In 2019, the city of Detroit planted two identical red maple saplings on either side of Woodward Avenue as part of an urban regreening project. Same species, same nursery, same week of planting. But one was set into a narrow concrete planter box on the sidewalk, its roots boxed in by asphalt and storm drains. The other was planted thirty feet away in a vacant lot where an old water main had been leaking for years, saturating the soil deep underground.

Five years later, the difference is staggering. The sidewalk maple is stunted, its leaves thin and yellowed by August. Every drought sends it into stress. The lot maple stands fifteen feet tall, its canopy wide and green even in the driest weeks of summer. Its roots found what they needed — not from the surface rain that comes and goes, but from a hidden, constant source beneath.

Jeremiah saw this same picture three thousand years ago. He warned that the person who anchors their confidence in human strength — in résumés, connections, political power, personal cleverness — becomes like that boxed-in tree, surviving but never thriving. But the one who sends their roots down toward the Lord, who trusts the Almighty even when the surface looks dry, draws from living water that never fails.

The question Jeremiah puts to every heart is simple: Where are your roots reaching? The answer, God tells us, is something only He fully knows — because the human heart deceives even its owner.