Annie
Scriptures: Jeremiah 6:16 Psalm 36:8-9 Psalm 18:19 John 14:4-5 Psalm 102:13-14
"Thus says the Lord: Stand by the roads and look; and ask for the eternal paths, where the good, old way is; then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk in it!"
Long ago God’s people rejected the word that God sent through Jeremiah, through disobedience and rebellion against all that being a child of God entailed. Yet God was offering them a way to turn back to Him and find rest in Him, but their hearts were stubborn and they refused to heed His Voice. So their land was invaded, Jerusalem was sacked and the people taken into captivity.
How often do we ask our Lord God for answers, but then, sometimes through doubt or because we don’t think that it is the right answer that will fit our expectation, we don’t believe what God reveals? We may not be in rebellion or disobedience, but we may miss what is always God’s desire – to communicate with us, to provide us with the best signpost to lead us on the path that He knows is where we need to be. He wants us to drink from the river of His pleasures, from His fountain of Life, so that in His Light we see light.
Earlier this year I was feeling so weary, the valley I was walking through seemed to be endless, but, now as I look back, I am so grateful for the way God continually and faithfully walked with me, carrying me so tenderly when the rocks and potholes were too big for me to negotiate. Even in my darkest times, somehow I knew He was holding me, guiding me and constantly assuring me that this path was the right way for me. I realised that I didn’t need to hear an audible voice, although that would have been amazing, He has given us His precious written Word. And often He would use those words to create pictures in my mind’s eye that were as clear as a spoken word. “He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.” The picture I saw of that broad place was such a huge encouragement, a lush, verdant plain, flooded in sunlight, or Son Light, opening out at the end of the valley. It was His Voice echoing through the scripture in brilliant colours and subtle hues.
All our assurance, all our hope is in Christ our Lord, the One who said to His disciples that they knew the Way, because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For three and a half years His disciples had heard Christ speaking of the Kingdom of His Father God, they had witnessed the miracles as irrefutable evidence of His Divinity. Finally they were there, with Him, in the garden as He was betrayed and dragged away to be cruelly mocked, scourged and eventually grotesquely nailed to a Roman cross. Yet, they found it difficult to accept that His Way was the only Way for anyone to find salvation, the prospect of a path that involved suffering was not what they had been expecting, or desiring.
We, like the disciples, need the power of Holy Spirit who will enable us to hear and absorb the whispers of God’s Voice that penetrate and obliterate the intellect of our own understanding. Through Holy Spirit we are able to follow wherever God leads us, through Him alone we can hear that precious Voice whispering in our ear, directing our steps, leading us on the narrow path to our eternal home. To our human eyes, the path may seem full of dust and potholes, yet God knows this is the material needed to build us into the living stones He already sees us as being.
Prayer: Father God, through the wondrous power of Holy Spirit may we gain the strength to fully commit to following wherever You lead us, ever listening for Your Voice and following in steps of Your Son, our Saviour Lord and Christ. Through His Name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
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