Jude Sisneros
As I study Jeremiah Chapters 42-44 a thought came to me.. These people went to Jeremiah to ask them to speak to the Lord on their behalf.. God gave them the instructions they did not want to hear.. They asked for Gods guidance with no intention of following it.. Has that happened to anyone other than myself? These people had not come to Jeremiah for guidance, but to get God’s approval of THEIR PLANS.. They were not seeking the direction of the Lord!! At times that seems to be a reoccurring problem for most of us.. And of course they suffered a great deal because they refused to learn any lessons from all the destruction their sins had caused. When we forget a lesson or refuse to learn from it, we risk repeating our mistakes. The people of Judah struggled with this; to forget their former sins was to repeat them. Bottom line to fail to learn from failure is to assure future failure. Your past is your school of experience, let your past mistakes point you to God’s way. The farther we drift from God the more confused our thinking becomes. Whatever spiritual life was left in the Israelites when they went to Egypt was lost as they sank into the depths of idolatry. And rather than looking at their own disobedience, they blamed troubles on their neglect of their own idols. Bottom line the people refuse to recognize the true source of their problems and that is departure from God‘s leading. Bottom line… when calamity forces you to examine your life, take a close look at God’s instructions for you and be willing to humbly apply what you find there.. Or… do what the Israelites did.. blame God, even blame your idols(problems) … or do what they did try to fix it yourself.. Be sure never to ask God for something that you know in your heart you really do not want.. it is better not to pray at all than to pray hypocritically.. God cannot be deceived.. Sin always looks worse in someone else, doesn’t it? Sometimes taking that journey inside gets ugly… But it is a necessary journey..