S) "21 I spoke to you in your prosperity;
But you said, ‘I will not listen!’
This has been your practice from your youth,
That you have not obeyed My voice."
Jeremiah 22:21 (NASB)
O) Every time the Israelites (both in Israel and Judah) would start to do well, they would abandon the LORD and disobey His voice, going their own way, to their own demise. Over and over, God would reach out to His people, but it was to no avail. Their pursuit of their own hearts would inevitably lead them to bondage under a foreign oppression, and it would remind them of their dependence on the LORD. This was a cycle that repeated from the time of Moses, through Judges, and on through all of the kings. It culminates in Jeremiah, where the last kings of Judah prove themselves unfaithful for the last time.
A) This verse is particularly concerning, because the most prosperous time of my life (financially speaking) coincided with the my slow abandonment of God. He was speaking to me during my prosperity, but I was not listening. As a youth, I was poor. It's not really accurate to say that this verse, when it says, "from your youth," is applicable to me - until I consider my spiritual life. My beginnings with God, my spiritual youth, began when I needed the LORD in my poverty (and all of its related difficulties). Then, in my prosperity, I stopped listening to Him. I was not obeying His voice. So now, I must consider, in the relative financial struggles I've had as an adult, particularly as I have pursued God, has He been using them to keep me close? And, more importantly, if He has, then how do I react to that. I'm tempted to be discouraged, but when I approach this application with humility, and love for my God, then I confess by His sovereignty, that His ways are better. If this is how He wants to keep me close, then I am thankful He has chosen to keep me close.
P) Father, Your ways are good, even if they don't align with my admittedly-small-view hopes. I confess that I want Your will for my life, even if that means financial hardship - even if that hardship is a life-long struggle. If I never have financial prosperity, but that keeps me desperately dependent on You, chasing You, being thankful for every provision, then that is exactly what I want. If it can be another way, then I ask for it, but not my will Father, but Your will be done. In Jesus's name I pray. Amen.
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