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!
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!
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