We are gathered around the table–five women whose lives have been upended in some measure by the closure of the university. Four are faculty wives; three of us are stay-at-home moms. One lady is a faculty member. The reports vary: jobs are in hand for two families; three job contacts in one day for another (we say YAY!); and a couple more are acting and waiting…a job in itself. We are here to share life and to talk to God about it around this table. We’ve been doing so for the past several months.
Our hostess opens her Bible, and our hearts, scattered here and there by our various specific circumstances yet bound together by our common one, are washed over and settled down with the flood of these truths from God’s mouth:
I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out–plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed. (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
As we pray, it occurs to me that, even though those verses were originally given to a group of people who had been exiled from their home land, they were not words for only then–or for only now. God never changes, and He desires our hearts toward Him and our trust in Him to be always steadfast–regardless of the circumstances.
Anchoring–those truths are anchoring. A shower song this morning starts “Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?” I didn’t know this, but an anchor doesn’t always do its job just by virtue of its weight. It keeps the vessel in place by that means OR “by its flukes, which grip the bottom”, according to Webster. Looking up “fluke”, I find that it is “the triangular blade at the end of an arm of an anchor, designed to catch in the ground.” (Triangular–good for my analogy…)
Truth digs in and hangs on. What truth is anchoring you today?
Amy,
Jeremiah 29:13 is especially powerful. My pastor used that verse in his sermon last week. I think about the fact that I love Jesus, and then I think about how much I desire the things of the world, whether to enjoy music and socialize, to find a spouse, or to enjoy a meal at my favorite restaurant. As struck as I was when I first heard Shane & Shane’s song “Yearn” [“I wanna yearn for You, I wanna bun with passion over You, and only You. . .”], and how much I thought I yearned for the Lord, I sometimes wonder if I truly am yearning on a consistent basis. Am I living out my desire by actively seeking Him and thirsting for Him and his righteousness more than I hunger for food and human companionship? I have the Holy Spirit within me and was created in the image of Almighty God, and yet I am so quick to settle for fulfilling secondary longings and go with the flow of the individualistic American culture in which I live. When will the greatest Gift and Treasure of all “measure up” in my eyes while, in the mean time, I continue to reap the benefits of His grace that surpasses and defeats that which defined me prior to my redemptive rebirth — my fallen human condition?
The lyrics are “burn with passion”, not “bun with passion”. oops. 🙂
Amy,
That verse has been coming to me much in the last few months. God knows what he is doing, and why he is doing. He has a plan and has all the details worked out. Sometimes I wish he would be more clear with the details but he does give us what we need at the right time. God’s timing is always perfect …
God bless and keep looking to God for your direction … because we both know that God’s plans are the best that we could ever ask for.
Take care … Diane