Category Archives: Life

Inevitable Compassion

Posted on by
Reply

When things are looking very bad, the one thing we perhaps fear the most is that they will never look good again.  Diving into this bottomless pit of awfulness is is self-destructive.  We have permission to rejoice.  As long as we’re looking to the Lord for help, this worst case scenario will never be true. 

Once again, Jeremiah leads the way in seeing light at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel of gloom.  If it was bad, he saw it.  If it was difficult, he endured it.  And he was no superman – he cried and griped often along the way.  But when it was all over and he was right in the midst of a well-desevered lengthy lament, he just couldn’t help but observe the following, leaving us with a profound message of hope: 

God’s compassion is inevitable.

“For the Lord will not cast off forever.
Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.”
– Lamentations 3:31-33 (NKJV)

Waiting

Posted on by
Reply

Patience is produced in the Christian by the indwelling Holy Spirit.  It is His longsuffering “fruit”, as Galatians 5:22 informs us.  If the Spirit didn’t develop this quality, it might never grow at all.  No doubt the very existence of impatience among us is one of the many ways the Fall of the Human Race has adversely impacted our lives .  When you see Adam punch him.

God understands well our need for this fruit patience and He knows best how to cultivate it.  So He allows us to wait, while we simply have to put up with stuff.  If there is one thing bad about this whole process it is that patience is produced while we’re waiting.

When it comes to waiting Jeremiah was an expert: waiting for someone to listen to him, waiting for the Lord to respond, speak or do something miraculous.  Jeremiah’s vast crop of patience was watered by his tears.  Still, he learned to appreciate it, and to see that waiting for God is good, precisely because God is good to those who wait for Him.

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
     To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
     For the salvation of the Lord.”
                    – Lamentations 3:25-26 (NKJV)

Mercy

Posted on by
Reply

By definition, mercy is something that is not guaranteed.  The American Heritage Dictionary explains mercy like this:

  1. Compassionate treatment, especially of those under one’s power; clemency.
  2. A disposition to be kind and forgiving: a heart full of mercy.

So when it is clearly possible to get something else, and we get mercy instead – compassionate treatment, kindness, forgiveness – we tend to breathe a huge sigh of relief. 

Such was the relief experienced by the prophet Jeremiah after the destruction of Jerusalem.  Babylon had conquered, the city was flattened, the nation was defeated, the captivity had begun – and, tragically, it might all have been avoided.  It was all their own fault and Jeremiah knew this better than anyone; he had been prophesying it all along.

But Jeremiah had also prophesied that the captivity would last seventy years.  As his nation had already been promised an eternal future, he apparently figured that seventy years was, well, doable.  Eternity was a lot longer.

When we consider our own difficulties and disasters, we are wise to listen to Jeremiah.  He knew disaster well.  This doesn’t decrease the reality of our grief.  It increases our appreciation of God.  When we desire Him more than anything else, His mercies will fill our hearts with hope.

This I recall to my mind,
     Therefore I have hope.
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
     Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
     Great is Your faithfulness.
‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul,
     ‘Therefore I hope in Him!'”
                    – Lamentations 3:21-24 (NKJV)

Reaching Forward

Posted on by
Reply

One sure sign of stagnation in the Christian walk is a deepening desire for nostalgia – that sick sense of longing for the good old days.  Solomon reminds us that dwelling on an idealistic view of the past is pointless:

Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’
For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.”
                                             – Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NKJV)

As followers of Jesus, we need to keep looking forward if we ever expect to keep up.  We do not follow a Savior who stands still – much less one who walks backwards.  The future is the only time available for us to apply the lessons we’re learning right now.  The future offers the only opportunity there is to experience the result of our spiritual growth.

Paul realized that even he was a work in progress.  The Christian can always be sure that the best is yet to come.  Reaching forward is the only way to get to it.  The Lord has a future planned for you that you don’t want to miss.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:12-14 (NKJV)