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get honest, trust God


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.
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.
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…

Don’t trust anyone—not your best friend or even your wife! …

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…

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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