Welcome back to another episode of Struggling Wealth as we put our thoughts together again. is something that we hope that you'll sit with, that you'll spend some time wrestling with in your own life. And it really comes this week from a passage of scripture that has sat well with you, Suz, as you have looked at it. So, I'm going to turn it over to you.
Yeah. let me preface everything by saying this that you know, we don't put out details about anybody's life or even our own very much because it's not the point. We can get all u into the details of somebody's stories and it's kind of like getting in the weeds and you can't find your way out. So, but you all know that it's been an interesting few years for us and the last year has been an experience that we have never known before. And so, it's like when you first have a baby and you've never had a baby and you're trying to figure out what to do with this screaming, crying eating, pooping child, you don't know what to do with it. And so that's been this last year for us. We really have been put up against circumstances that we have not known what to do with. So it's gotten to the point where it feels like we've had a lot of stories that have come at us, some from within our that relate to us and other stories that it's gotten kind of discouraging. like I don't know I have felt kind of discouraging discouraged I should say. Jimmy's been praying for me and I think he mentioned it last podcast that he's been praying that I would see God that I would be searching for him and that I'd find him and see him and see new things about him. So the backdrop is hard stuff. In recent days I've been studying I'm doing a study with a group called Inrust and They have amazing modules of learning how to study the Bible and some other things. And I'm doing a module called facilitating relational learning. Sounds very fancy, but it's how to lead a small group in an incredible way. But one of the things we have to do in this class is we've got to study a passage of scripture ourselves and really study it and take it apart and look, you know, observe it, interpret it, and then apply it. You know, those three things that so many people understand about. So, I'm working on this homework assignment and I have to pick a passage of scripture. And so, the one that I ended up with, I'm not going to tell you what it is yet because you I don't want you to go, "Oh, yeah, I know that passage." I started looking at it and studying it. And I decided to use the NLT Bible because it's not my study Bible. I use ESV for that. But the NLT is a very conversational not as loose as the Message, but which I also love, but it's a great translation. So I started reading and these were the verses that I had been given in the homework assignment and nothing happens by chance. And so this is how it went. It starts in verse 20 and it's in chapter 3 which you all know. So it says, "I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this. The faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin aresh each morning. I say to myself, "The Lord is my inheritance. Therefore, I will hope in him." And then further down in verse 31, it says, "No one is abandoned by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love. For he does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow." So, first and foremost, as I'm reading this, as especially those first few verses. I will never forget this awful time. Man, that resonated with me. I will never forget this awful time. And so, as I'm studying this and working on this and just saying, Lord, I don't want to forget the awful time, Jeremiah wanted the people of Israel not to forget the awful time, but he wanted them to know who God was and what God was doing. And I really believe that as I have been ing this passage. I'm not done. That God has wanted to get my attention to say this is yeah, you're not going to ever forget this, but I want to say some things to you. So, probably about 30 minutes later, my phone rings and it's one of my children. And in that conversation, she shares with me, three different things. I'm numbering them because it's easier for me to keep track, but three different ways that she saw God at work and where in the midst of her lament and her discouragement, she saw God at work. and that phone call was not, "Oh, everything's going to be okay. See, God, isn't God wonderful?" But it was this it was a whisper from God as I'm studying this passage. And the whisper was encourage encouragement and invitation. And that phone call reminded me that if I'm looking for God, I'm going to find him. So, as I've gone back to the passage and I've tried to observe some things, I've looked at it more deeply than I've ever read it before. And all of a sudden, I see all these contrasts and these comparisons. And the fact that at one point Jeremiah is saying how much he uffering. But then he talks about hope. he says, "I'm never going to forget this awful time, but later on he says, "But I remember God's love, his steadfast love, and his mercies. I feel homeless, and yet God never abandons us." So what am I trying to say here? I'm not trying to make have you feel what I felt or see what I saw,
right?
I see you're perched to say something.
No, I just I think what you've said there is so it's so important for us to realize that it is this mixture and we've had this we've said this before it's very rare that there's only one emotion for a day like pure joy or pure sadness there's always a mixture there and sometimes it's only when I look back and I can see as Jeremiah did here as he said here that you know yes it felt like God had abandoned them, but he would not he didn't cast them off forever because through his because he'll have compassion and the abundance of his steadfast love. So I don't always see that in the moment, but I look back and I can see that. And then for the conversation with our daughter that you had there, there was evidence not again of everything turning out to be and that they lived happily ever after, but it was the presence of God in the midst of those things. Again, evidence that he is right there with us.
You know, the passage is great, babe, and what you said is true that we don't always see everything that God is doing. The amazing thing to me about this passage is the context, and the context is that Jeremiah is speaking to rebellious Israel. He's been doing that all through the book of Jeremiah. In Lamentations, it becomes more of an individual thing. But what amazes me is Not the phone call, not some news that was better than what we've been hearing. But what has touched my heart the most is that God is speaking to his people who have been belligerent, disobedient, rebellious, and he is offering them hope and he's offering them mercy and his faithful love and that he's not going to abandon them. And that's the part to me. It's not, "Yay, you got a phone call and you got some better news than you've had in a long time. It's not even when it says I will never forget this. But the part is that's Jeremiah making his lament individual, but it's the fact that God says, you know, I don't enjoy hurting people. I don't enjoy my disciplining my children. And yet out of love, he disciplines us. And so that's where I'm landing is okay, everything may be upside down. But what is God doing in this? And where does he want me to recognize my rebellion, excuse me, rebelliousness against him? Where is he as a loving father disciplining me so that I will become more like his son?
Yeah. And that's and I think that last phrase that you just said is the key for all of us is that his desire is that we become more like his son. Not that we live in a stress-free, struggle-free life. Although that's what we would like. And I don't know that he enjoys us going through that, but sometimes that's exactly where we have to go and what we have to go through in order to look more like his son.
And so, it's a great example, Suzi, of wrestling with the text that God gives you and spending time in it. And, some Sometimes we read through the Bible and we just move along at a clip, but I think sometimes it's well just to sit and meditate on one passage for a period of time and see all the nuances that God's word provides for us.
And so, wherever you're at this week, what our encouragement would be is that you sit with God's word and allow it to wash over you and your circumstances and to see who God is in the midst of it all. Have a good week.