Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today- January 19, 2014
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you.”
Joel 2:25
God can make up for wasted time. He specializes in redeeming rough seasons in our lives. What has become a torturous transition, He can use to love you into a closer relationship with Him. Where else can you go for eternal life than to the one who is eternal (John 6:68)? Allow God to backfill this blot on your past. He can rebuild what has been broken, even destroyed.
You may have been embarrassed and humiliated but this is not beyond God’s long arm of restoration. Injustice may have invaded your unsuspecting life. Unaware and unexpectedly you lost everything you had spent a lifetime building. Poof, in a twinkle of an eye, it was gone. Your career was gone. Your family teetered on division. Your reputation was tattered and all but obliterated. Your joy was gone, your finances depleted, your energy sapped. And your faith was shot full of holes. Your desire to move forward in life was severely stalled.
Worst of all, you wondered where the Lord was in all this reversal of fortune. You were on the fast track to bitterness because of your feelings of betrayal. You may have hit rock bottom, and now there is nowhere to look but up. Look up to Jesus. He is your hope, your rock, and your refuge. Look up to the Lord even though He may seem a million miles away. Now is the time to practice what you told others all those years. Trust God during this time of turmoil. God wants to backfill your loss. He can fill your pit of pity with hope (Psalm 40:2). Your broken relationships that are buried in a cistern of hurt, He can retrieve with forgiveness. Into your financial black hole, He can shine the light of His provision and opportunity.
In Christ, your best days lie ahead. Submit to His healing. Let go of your hurt and pride, hang onto Him. He is the best thing you have going for you. Let these failures forge a stronger faith in you and in your family. Face the fact that you are forgiven and move forward in the power of the Holy Spirit. Lean on the Lord. He can handle it. He is your stability in this storm of insanity. God is there for you to rebuild your reputation, and to give you daily doses of hope and encouragement. Your eruption of raw emotion will grow you into a more sensitive and compassionate follower of Christ.
He has brought you through this crisis of faith to allow you to coach others through the same. You are a living and breathing testimony of the grace and love of God. Project His faithfulness on other fledgling followers of Jesus. Let the Lord backfill the hole in your heart and life with His love and faithfulness. His filling of right attitudes and actions will bar the door of your mind from bitterness and backstabbing. Invite the Holy Spirit to backfill your soul with His fruit of love, joy, peace, self-control, purity, forgiveness, and humility. What God fills proves faithful. What God fills, He controls and comforts. Use the lessons of the past as a reminder for the Holy Spirit’s filling in the present. His backfilling results in faithfulness going forward.
Taken from the January 19th reading in Boyd’s 365-day devotional book, “Seeking Daily the Heart of God vol. 1” … http://bit.ly/Tv6y9a
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It was less than a minute after I was wondering where the passage of Scripture was that talks about God replacing what the locusts have eaten. My heart has been grieving the loss of my relationship with my daughter, again. It’s like a wound that opens every once in awhile, never really healing. I went to the computer to have coffee and read email. Your post was there. The passage I was speaking in my mind, wanting comfort for the lost years of companionship with my daughter. Could God speak any quicker or sweeter than He did at that moment? I read your post, and my heart is renewed and hopeful again. My eyes are fixed on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of my faith. Thank you for your precious post…..
Wow just what I needed…..thank you Jesus and this site.
Dear Jamie,
Thank you for being a fellow wisdom hunter. We appreciate you taking the time to let us know you like the Wisdom Hunters devotionals. Have a blessed day!
Believing and trusting~
Gwynne
Dear Jeri~ Thank you for taking the time to let us know how this Wisdom Hunter devotional touched you. Don’t you just love God’s Timing? I am always awestruck at the fact HE is in the details of our lives with people, devotionals, HIS WORDS, circumstances, etc.. at the most precious times!
The sentence in the devotional :”Let the Lord backfill the hole in your heart and life with His Love and Faithfulness”, says it all. He is there for us~always.
May this new year bring you and your family joy and peace.
Believing and trusting~
Gwynne
Thank you, Gwynne!