The Knee Jerk Devotional
“Let your love, God, shape my life with salvation, exactly as you promised...”
Last night we were talking about Paul's call to go to Jerusalem and how he understood his obedience to that call would result in seeing God work. One of the things that came out of conversation was this desire that we would have as clear a call as Paul did. How nice would it be to really know what our calling is?
“You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want.”
As I continue to read and study the Bible I am more convinced than ever that much of what Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day are the things that I need to hear.
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.”
This beautiful line is from Psalm 90:1. I grabbed my attention and I keep thinking about it. This concept of God being our dwelling place.
I too often think about God as someone far off or disconnected. Yet, here the Psalmist calls me to consider the reality that it is in God where we will dwell.
“I'm committed in love to you.”
I'm really grateful that my kids and I have never had a falling out. I can't really imagine the pain that would cause. Being estranged from my children is probably my greatest fear. I don't even want to think about it.
“Day after day after day they never give me a thought.”
Typically when our family starts out on a road trip we say a prayer. We pray that God would get us to where we are going safely. We genuinely pray. We are earnest. There is a desire on our part to entrust the drive to God and we want to arrive safely.
As far as I can tell God has answered every one of these prayers by getting us to and fro safely.
“How do you account for what is written in the desert dust...”
I had a dentist appointment yesterday. I despise going to the dentist. Every time they take my blood pressure and every time it's just above normal. They always ask if that's normal. My response, “only when I'm here.”
“But my people have traded my Glory for empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes.”
It was the late nineties and I was working hard at raising support to join the staff of a campus ministry. This particular man that I was connecting with took me to a gathering of people from his church to introduce me to them. As we were driving he was explaining to me that the day of small churches was over. He said that little churches would soon be swallowed up by the biggest churches in the area because the large churches had power and resources that small churches could only dream about.
“I remember your youthful loyalty, our love as newlyweds.”
We road trip pretty much everywhere. Mostly because we like having our car available to us wherever it is we go. But, also because we are pretty cheap and renting a car is ridiculously expensive.
“And God said, 'Good eyes! I'm sticking with you...'”
This passage is not what I would call comforting. God is telling Jeremiah what his message is going to be and that he needs to stand firm in speaking this message. The message is going to be hard. This is part of the pulling up and tearing down that was described to him earlier in his conversation with God.
I have to imagine that Jeremiah probably felt his stomach hurt a little bit.
“Your job is to pull up and tear down, take apart and demolish, and then start over, building and planting.”