Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images from Sara Groves singing her song … I’ll Wait … poignantly singing about in what all Christians need to invest more of our selves … remembering where we’ve been and waiting on God to lead us in His direction.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Jeremiah 29:10-11 … [NLT] …
10 This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
… God’s specific promise to His people in exile; … and His New Covenant promise when The Lord, in God’s plan, returns to take His Bride home to be with Him forever.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Jeremiah 29:4-14 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… After Judah’s exile to Babylon, God, thru Jeremiah, charges His believing remnant to trust His plan for them and to work for His glory while in exile, promising to return them to the Promised Land one day. … And He will one day!!
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Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : … Psalm 119:105 [NLT] …
105 Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.
… Clear enough, don’t you think?
Reference Passage #2 [NKJV] : … Proverbs 3: 5-6 [NKJV] …
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.
… God always has a plan - HIS PLAN - for His remnant of repentant believers; but do we believe it and are we willing to wait on His plan to unfold?
Reference Passage #3 [NLT] : … Luke 9:23 [NLT] … 23 Then He (Jesus) said to the crowd, “If any of you want to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow Me.
… So often we’re not willing to wait on God leading the way; and we try to go it on our own.
Reference Passage #4 [NKJV] : … Philippians 3:13-14 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God gives us a good plan to follow Him … don’t you think?!!
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, David McCasland, used the teachings of famous Bible teacher, Oswald Chambers, to prod us, as Christians, to be more patient in finding God’s way rather than trying to push thru life on our own. The ODB author wrote: Our experiences of loss and disappointment may leave us feeling angry, guilty, and confused. Whether our choices have closed some doors that will never reopen or, through no fault of our own, tragedy has invaded our lives, the result is often what Oswald Chambers called “the unfathomable sadness of ‘the might have been.’ ” We may try to suppress the painful memory, but discover we can’t.
Chambers reminds us that the Lord is still active in our lives. “Never be afraid when God brings back the past,” he said. “Let memory have its way. It is a minister of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the ‘might have been’ into a wonderful [place of growth] for the future.”
True, isn’t it?! … All too often we become impatient, especially when things don’t go the way we want them to. And we forge ahead to find our own way thru the fogginess of life, rather than looking for God’s lighthouse our using His GPS (i.e., God’s word) to follow HIS plan for our lives. We try to drive down God’s road using the rearview mirror, rather than just looking at what’s out there ahead of us and trusting God to show us HIS way [see the reference scriptures above].
The rearview mirror (i.e., our memories) should be God’s memory ministry, to help us avoid the pot holes and detours of life. But as Sara Groves sings, we should wait on God to make HIS way clear to us and then go down His road in life, looking out ahead of us to follow our Lord and let Him light the way (primarily using His word).
My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … dear Lord, … Everyday I come here seeking Your way and Your will thru Your word; and You shine a light on my path. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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