Daily Devotion – 13th March 2021
A Burning fire….
The prophet Jeremiah was literally in the pits. He was overwhelmed with disillusionment and drowning in despair, he cursed the day he was born and wondered why an abortion wasn’t performed, allowing him not to be born….. Jeremiah 20:18 Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow, That my days should be consumed with shame?
Jeremiah, the prophet of God, held nothing back – he was more than down, he was done!
In chapter 20 we find Jeremiah had been beaten (forty lashes), then placed in stocks. This after he was beaten. Why? Had he committed a crime? No. He had simply declared the truth and been serving the Lord as God had commanded him. He was deeply hurt!
But on top of that, people were gossiping about him, His once trusted friends tagged him with a nickname – “Magor-Missabib” – meaning “terror on every side”. This cut Jeremiah deeply at a time he could certainly have been backed up by those he considered friends.
Jeremiah 20: 7 O LORD, You induced me, and I was persuaded;
You are stronger than I, and have prevailed.
I am in derision daily;
Everyone mocks me.
8 For when I spoke, I cried out;
I shouted, “Violence and plunder!”
Because the, word of the LORD was made to me
A reproach and a derision daily.
Jeremiah is struggling with God’s justice and the treatment he was going through. It was tough!
There are times in our lives, like Jeremiah we just get smashed by a big wave and then there is a series of others waves that hit us when we are trying to come up for air and we think we are going to drown!
There are times in the ministry of some 40 plus years, when all you have seemingly left is the call of God and you begin to wonder….and contemplate walking into the wilderness to hide. When the load, the sorrow is simply too much to handle.
But God, right at the time you are ready to ‘disappear’, you experience what happened to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 20:9 But His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not.
Directly sent from God this powerful surge of hope rises, this massive upheaval, like a seismic movement and your disillusionment is replaced with reassurance, the Holy Spirit fills your sails until they are ready to split from the surge of power, and you ready to set sail again, and you are bursting to proclaim God’s goodness to any and to all who will hear, no matter what.
“It is well, it is well within my soul….”
Maybe this is your story today, if not it will be tomorrow or the next as we continue to faithfully serve our Lord and love His church. Heaven, that seemed once like brass, now is wide open and you sense God watching you and encouraging you on into the battle once again.
May God’s Word burn within your heart like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, so that you cannot but run and tell others no matter the time or the distance.
May you be unable to hold back the living water that is seeking to gush from you who calls Jesus Lord and Saviour.
Another day, another battle and always another victory because Jesus Christ is Lord of lords and King of kings and He is coming soon!