Tag: Jeremiah

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Loneliness Birds

Dear Sister,
Adam and Eve felt it. Noah felt it. Job definitely felt it. Poor Jeremiah felt it too. Loneliness. Adam and Eve felt it after that first bite of forbidden fruit, the close fellowship they had with the Lord was gone. Noah built the first boat for the first rain to the decades of jeers from family, friends, and strangers. Job lost every creature comfort in a matter of days (except for his complaining wife) oblivious to the heavenly battle brewing above. Jeremiah was put in a cistern, cooked over feces, and was even put in an oxen yoke as he followed the Lord.

Me? I felt it as a scrawny, curly redheaded, braces clad, and bifocaled girl who never quite fit in with any crowd. I felt it when tumultuous times came and I had no safe person to confide in or run to for help. Loneliness birds hover when my husband deploys…again. How about you? What makes you feel loneliness…that tight ache in your belly and heart that twists and pounds for comfort and understanding from a friend? Do you ever feel alone in a crowded room? Stay there for a second…what are we really longing?

The Lord, Creator of us and the entire Universe, made us to long for fellowship. We were created to long for Him and for other humans. Just look at Adam! He had a perfect world and relationship with God yet God said that it was not good for him to be alone…and He created Eve. A helper. A friend. A fellow sojourner. When we don’t have either of these relationships, loneliness birds begin to hover. We long for sweet fellowship to shush them away. We are lonely.

Loneliness in itself is not a sin. It is a feeling and emotion that Adam, Eve, Noah, Job, Jeremiah, and many fellow believers have felt (and feel)…in fact, Jesus felt it in the garden when His closest friends fell asleep on Him in is most desperate hour. He felt it on the cross when the Father poured His wrath on Him. Yet there is a difference in how we as believers respond to loneliness and how the world responds.

The world often tells us to turn inward. Get a cup of coffee, take these pills, go shopping, be independent and do life for yourself. Oh the lie!! Scripture tells us to turn outward! Look to the Lord! Cry out to Him! Serve others! Grab a Starbucks…but take a friend with you, or pay for the person behind you. Jesus died on the cross to restore the relationship with God that was lost in the garden. Our sin was paid for there! Completely! Now we have access to the Father through Him! We have fellowship with the same God that walked with Adam, Noah, Job, and Jeremiah! Wow!! We are never separated from God again after we trust in Christ! No more loneliness birds! Ever! Yet we forget. That’s when our fellowship with believers is so crucial! Embed yourself sweet sister into your local church. Lean into your brothers and sisters in Christ when you feel alone. They are there to remind you of what you have in Christ. They are there to hold up your arms to fight loneliness when your strength is gone. Don’t turn inward, turn outward!
One last thing…if your own loneliness birds have flown the coop…look around, who needs your fellowship and help to make their birds fly?

Your Sister in Christ,
Colleen

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The Other Side of Steadfastness

Dear Sister,

Jeremiah the prophet (not the ever-so-popular bullfrog) had a rough life. The Lord told him to prophesy about His own plans for Israel and the nations while never allowing Jeremiah to see them come to be. Yet in the midst of Jeremiah’s darkest times and darkest laments (the book of Lamentations) he writes “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness (vss. 22-23).” Jeremiah held to the truth he knew about the Lord: That His mercy, goodness, love, and His grace are steadfast. Why did that mean so much to him – and as well to us?

Man, do I love the idea of the Lord’s steadfast love, mercy, and kindness. This love never ends and never changes. But as I was thinking of the steadfastness of the Lord a question pricked my mind. How much of the Lord’s character can be described as steadfast? Is it just his love, mercy, and kindness? I don’t believe so. The Bible teaches that the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever…that we can trust He is who He is, the Great I AM. What truly hit me about this is not His love, mercy, and kindness, but the steadfastness of His justice. Why? Because if the Lord was not steadfast in giving justice to sin, then we could never understand or appreciate the steadfastness of His love, mercy, and kindness. To know the wrath that sin deserves spurs me to tell my friends and family about Jesus and the hope of the cross. To know the wrath my sin deserves spurs me to seek forgiveness and repentance before a holy God.

Sweet sister, don’t just stop and chew the steadfast love, mercy, and kindness of the Lord for comfort, go deeper. Like Jeremiah, remember the steadfast justice of the Lord and where that leads those that do not trust Jesus as their Savior and hope. Remember the steadfast justice of the Lord and seek His repentance in your own life. Then like Jeremiah, the full realization of the Lord’s steadfast character will not only give you rest and comfort, it will spur you on to do the hard things the Lord calls you to do. Pray I will do the same.

Your sister in Christ,

Colleen

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God’s Plan Is My Hope

My Dearest Sister,

You may or may not know this, but I am the kind of person who likes to have a plan for everything. Knowing what’s going to happen next makes me feel grounded, secure and like everything is under control. You could definitely say that I am not a “fly by the seat of my pants” kind of person. While this may just seem like a funny little quirk, as I’m sure my husband will tell you it can be a real problem sometimes, especially when my plans start to fall apart. Being an Army wife, it can be especially difficult at times because there’s so much of the future that is unknown. Where will we be stationed after flight school? When will my husband get deployed? How long will it be until I can see my family back home again? It’s hard to plan around the unknown. But if I don’t make sure everything is in order, who will, right? Maybe you have felt this way yourself at some point.

This anxiety about the future has been on my mind a lot lately. It wasn’t until I had utterly “freaked” myself out about what our plans for the future were going to be that I remembered a favorite passage in Jeremiah: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). It was almost as if God was saying “Hey, Lauren, you need to calm down and relax. Remember the peace I have in mind for you. Hope in me and the future I have planned for you, not the plan you’re designing for yourself.” As soon as I read that passage, it was like the floodgates of hope just opened up. God has everything under control. Even if I don’t know the plan, I can be sure that He only has my good in mind. I can always hope and rely on God’s goodness. What a reassurance that was to me! No matter how thoroughly I plot my plans can always fall apart, but God’s plans for me never fail. I always have a hope for the future in Him.

As marvelous as this promise is, the concept of hope extends even further. Not only do we have a reason to hope for our future in this life, but we have a greater and more glorious hope in the next eternal one. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 highlights this hope: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day…. we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” When we are in Christ, we have a hope that surpasses our earthly troubles and worries. Too often we focus on the temporary of this life, the perishing things around us. What we should be focusing on are the spiritual things that are eternal and don’t pass away because that is where our hope is secure. So while the sea of life may be rough and toss us about in its swells, as Hebrews 6:19 says about the promise of eternal life in Christ, “this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.” Even the waves of trials and heartaches – though they may be great – cannot overcome our hope in Christ. For you see, dear sister, even the pain and suffering on this earth have an end. When we start looking past the temporary and focus on the endless hope we have in Christ, suddenly the temporary isn’t as daunting anymore.

Even though I am trying to hope and trust in God’s plan for my future, it is very difficult sometimes. At least if I write down a schedule, I can see it and understand it because it’s directly in front of me. It is much harder to hope in the unseen things. But as Romans 8:24 so poignantly says “hope that is seen is not hope, for why does one still hope for what he sees?” Therefore, we can only hope in the unseen, the spiritual truths of God, not in the sure things of this life. Oh, how marvelous the Word of God is, the way it challenges us to change! And so, dear sister, I urge you to join me in focusing on your hope in Christ for your future, and not leaning only on your own plans for yourself; to remember your hope is not just in this temporary life, but in the eternal. What a better season to change our focus than this Christmas? Let us celebrate together the birth of the One who brought hope to the world, not just a temporary hope, but an eternal one. For while the visible things of this world will pass away, nothing can take away the hope we have in our Savior.

Your loving sister in Christ,
~ Lauren