A Future and a Hope!

Reading:  Jeremiah 26 - 29
My Verse:  "You will seek me and find me,
                    when you seek me with all your heart" ( Jeremiah 29:13).

These chapters are quite amazing in what they say to us!  The Israelites are in exile in a far away land.  They are longing to return home and many false prophets tell them that it will be soon!  Only these false prophets are exposed by Jeremiah.  No, You LORD God have your specific timing.  You have Your purposes to fulfill.  We cannot hurry that up or change circumstances to advance our own selfish desires.  We can only rest and trust in You and Your love for us - Your timing and purposes for us - for our future and our hope!

"For thus says the LORD:  "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, "I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you" (Jeremiah 29:10-12).

I often have this feeling of anxiety for what lies ahead.  It is a feeling of dread that hovers over me - doggedly dragging me down, hampering my ability to look forward.  I know this is not of You, LORD God.  And I thank You for helping me to battle this - giving me tools, showing me what to do when this happens.  Mainly I need to bring my gaze back to You, allowing all that is around me to melt away.  Sometimes I am not able to get there by myself and You, LORD God bring people into my path during those times - people that dispel  the awful sense of dread.  Thank You for that - You always know when I need cheering up!

I know, too, that I am an impatient person as my son often reminds me!  But, thank You, LORD God for Your patience with me - as you slowly teach me to lean on You, to wait on You.  It is so very hard and yet I am gradually beginning to trust You in this!  For that is what it is - trusting You, LORD God.  Trusting that You love me and have a beautiful plan for me - a plan for my welfare, a future and a hope!

Waiting and trusting are not easy things to do.  It is so much easier to go with our selfish wants now - instant gratification!  But nothing is instant, even when we go with that which is not right we do so incrementally.  We turn our eyes from You, LORD God and start casting them elsewhere and the adversary is all too glad to place before us tempting distractions that draw us further and further into a slide headed toward an egocentric abyss - a place where we allow ourselves to gorge our ego's demands.

Love Emily Dickinson's poem "Crumbling Is Not an Instant's Act"

Crumbling is not an instant's Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation's processes
Are organized Decays.

'Tis first a Cobweb on the soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust --

Ruin is formal -- Devil's work
Consecutive and slow --
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping -- is Crash's law.

But even then we can come back to You, LORD God.  For You tell us we will find you if we "seek you with all [our] heart."  For if we call on you, pray to you - You will hear us,  You are waiting to hear us, waiting for us to come back to You because You have something wonderful for us.  You are just waiting to grace us with - a future and a hope that we cannot even imagine.

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!

Provoking God to Our Own Harm

Reading:  Jeremiah 24, 25
My Verse:  "You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear,
                        although the LORD persistently sent to you 
                          all his servants, saying,

                     "Turn now, every one of you,
                           from your evil deeds . . .

                      Do not go after other gods to serve and worship,
                           or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands.

                     Then I will do you no harm.

                     Yet you have not listened to me, declares the LORD,
                           that you might provoke me to anger
                           with the work of your hands
                           to your own harm"  (Jeremiah 25:4 - 7).

How we love the blame game!  It is always so much easier to look to someone else, some event or circumstance to point at as the cause of our own mistakes, our own failures.  While there is something to that we are still responsible for our own sin.  We each of us choose to do those things that we know are not right and we always know exactly what we are doing.   Then when we are caught in our wrong we scramble to find a "reason" for why we did that.  Yet it is  our own doing - the "work of [our own] hands" that cause our downfall.  "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire" (James 1:14 ESV).

Placing blame elsewhere is something we do so very well.  In an article I read on this the author pointed our a reason for this behavior.

"Unfortunately, blame is like anger in that  it dulls one's sense of empathy.  It allows a person to act in a hurtful way to another human being.  It isn't the act itself, but it often clears the road.  This is a small, but important point.  Ordinary  humans have inhibitions that serve as a buffer against what we know is bad behavior.  Blame is not the act itself, but it either erodes or outright removes these inhibitions, often both.  It develops a thought patten that allows the person's emotions to override his/her self-control in order to achieve an often selfish end -- including sustaining dysfunctional patterns."

The article goes into great depth on the stages and variations of this use of blame, it basically shows how this behavior leads one slowly and steadily downhill as do all things we do that are against Your teaching and precepts, LORD God.

Another thing people do to make it easier for themselves to engage in that which they know is wrong is to rationalize.  It really is quite amazing how one can rationalize pretty much anything.  Rationalizing helps us to justify our bad behavior.  It somehow makes us feel like we are owed or entitled to do this wrong thing.  An article on this pointed out that "The people who rationalize the most have the most tedious, frustrating and unfulfilling lives."  It went on to point out how people that do this often start to lose their sense of reality, and begin to actually believe themselves and are blinded to truth and the obvious consequences of what they are doing.  Rationalizing is basically simply making excuses - and one can get pretty good at it!

You point out here, LORD God, that we "provoke [you] to anger with the work of [our] own hands to [our] own harm."

We each of us must give an accounting for the choices we make.

"For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God;
     for it is written,
     "As I live, says the LORD, every knee shall bow to me,
     and every tongue shall confess to God."

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God"  (Romans 14:10-12).

Many look to you in fear, LORD God.  And that because they know in their heart of hearts that You are righteous and holy.  You cannot abide sin.  You are love and do all that You can to bring us to you but in the end we each need to make that decision ourselves.  In the end we are responsible for our own harm when we receive your final judgement and punishment.

Thank You for Your Word, for your truth and instruction written not only in the Bible but upon every part of creation!  (Romans 1:20)

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!

Not A Far Away God!

Reading: Jeremiah 19 - 23
My Verse:  "Am I a God at hand,
                         declares the LORD,
                    and not a God far away?
        
                   Can a man hide himself in secret places
                      so that I cannot see him?
                         declares the LORD.

                  Do I not fill heaven and earth?
                       declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 23:23,24).

You, LORD God are omnipresent!  And this can be either very comforting or very disconcerting to me!  You are always close by me.

I like the question, "Can a man hide . . .?"  So many want to.  So many try to.  Sadly even adults do this - hiding away to do that which they know is wrong, that which needs to be hidden.  Closing and locking doors, shutting out the lights, then lying to cover up, living in pretense that all is well by lying but always with a fear they will be found out.  Yet, You LORD God cannot be locked out of a room, darkness is as nothing to You.

"Do I not fill heaven and earth?"  You are everywhere - there is no place to hide.  David says it best in Psalm 139.

"O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
   You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down
   and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,
   behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,
   and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
   it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?

I I ascend to heaven, your are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
   and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
   even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light about me be night,"

even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you."

Yes, LORD God, this is a most wonderful truth!  It is a truth that is beyond my ability to fully grasp.
I can only be thankful that You are a God that is never far away!  Help me today to lean in and let that truth embrace me!

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!