Day 12 – Issue 18

Be Still Know

Jeremiah 2:13 NLT

‘For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me — the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!’

I can remember as a child feeling angry with my parents when confined to my room for something I’d done wrong. I spent no time at all reflecting upon the actions that had brought me there. I preferred to contemplate how I would live my life without them. I would plan to run away and distance myself and then they’d be sorry for how they’d treated me. Of course, all of these ‘I’ll show them’ plans never materialised beyond my imagination. It was simply a way of processing my shame, hurt, my sense of indignation and the like. However, such reactions don’t disappear.

In the same way, as I have matured in my faith I have found the need to learn how best to avoid storming out on God. As life’s uncertainties and disappointments impact me, I have to address my instinctive reaction to blame God and become grumpy. Reaction drives me both to reject God and to plan a life going forward with a God who I craft in my own image to suit my own immediate needs. Of course, this is no God but a self-constructed empathetic idol to whom I address my angst.

However, life has taught me that it’s best not to look deep within. Rather, I need to consider why I reacted and isolate the source of my pain. Nothing can be treated until it’s first been accurately diagnosed. Treatment will require a period of sustained action before the source of that pain is dealt with. God is with me throughout such treatment, yet it demands that I am consistent and press on to the end. I have to trust my physician, who is, in fact, God.

QUESTION: Do you find your friendship with God goes up and down depending on how easy you find life?

PRAYER: Sovereign Lord, help me to live with the truth that I am made in your image and not the other way around.