During the sermon yesterday at The Community
I shared some verses from Micah 7 that hit me this past week as I was
studying. It was one of those things
that hit me like a ton of bricks. God
was speaking to me from right where I am living and where I am struggling.
God cares for His children, but one of the
things that I have been reminded of is that I must not, we must not seek our
confidence and satisfaction from people or the situations around us. Our confidence comes from a personal
relationship with our God. It is vital
to me that I make sure I am honest, and what I have found is that the more
honest I am, the more I can encourage others to get closer to God and allow Him
to heal our hurts and brokenness.
I’ve been broken. I deal with pain. No, this is not pain from body aches or
sickness. This is the inner pain that
happens in life. It sounds like this
passage was written by me, and it wasn’t, simply getting honest. Read on:
How
miserable I am! I feel like the fruit
picker after the harvest who can find nothing to eat. Not a cluster of grapes or a single early fig
can be found to satisfy my hunger.
2 The
godly people have all disappeared; not
one honest person is left on the earth. They are all murderers, setting traps even for their own
brothers.
3 Both
their hands are equally skilled at doing evil! Officials and judges alike
demand bribes. The people with influence get what
they want, and together they
scheme to twist justice…
5 Don’t
trust anyone—not your best friend or even your wife! …
7 As
for me, I look to the Lord for help. I wait confidently for God to save me, and my God will certainly hear me…
9 I
will be patient as the Lord punishes me,
for I have sinned against him. But after that, he will take up my
case and give me justice for all
I have suffered from my enemies. The Lord will bring me into the light, and I will see his righteousness…
14 O
Lord, protect your people with your shepherd’s staff; lead your flock, your special possession. Though they live alone in
a thicket on the heights of
Mount Carmel, let them graze in
the fertile pastures of Bashan and Gilead as they did long ago.
15 “Yes,”
says the Lord, “I will do mighty miracles for you, like those I did when I rescued you from slavery in Egypt.” …
19 Once
again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your
feet and throw them into the
depths of the ocean!
20 You
will show us your faithfulness and unfailing love as you promised to our ancestors Abraham and Jacob long ago.
You might want to read that again. Better yet, click on the link for Micah 7
above and read the entire passage. Those
verses honestly sound like one of my bad days.
I have those.
But from the bad to the good, this passage is
like a coming to reality. When I realize
that my feelings are a poor detector of God’s goodness, something changes in
me. My hope comes bad and kicks out
hopelessness. I pray that feeling and
fact of hope grows more and more in me and in you.
I think I will be reading this passage again
several times in the days ahead, and I pray that my reality will be even more
based on our awesome God. Even when it
seems like I am alone, I am not. He is
my confidence, and our God does miracles!
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