Jeremiah 42, "Don’t forget this warning I have given you today. For you were not being honest when you sent me to pray to the Lord your God for you. You said, ‘Just tell us what the Lord our God says, and we will do it!’ And today I have told you exactly what He said, but you will not obey the Lord your God any better now than you have in the past." The people were hurting. They were calling out to God for help and guidance, but they had a plan already in mind. They did not want to really hear what God wanted for them, but they wanted God to agree with them and their plans.
I have been this person too many times. I have "my" plan in mind; I pray and pray for God to go along with my plan. And yet, how many times He has told me to do something else...but it did not go along with "my" plan. Everyone does it to some degree, but sometimes we say it is God's plan. We say that it is what God wants for us, but you can see when others say this, that they are just masking their plan with "it is what God wants." I have said it and I have been on the receiving end of it. But the fruit that is harvested after the plan is carried out, is the truth in the whole situation. Truth is always revealed. You can either be on the side of truth from the beginning or you can be proven a liar in the end. It is when we truly surrender our wants over to God and do what He really wants us to do, that we find joy in His truth. It is the selfishness that gets in our way. Just like our little children, we want things our way. But God is not calling us to do things our way. He is calling us to find life in obeying Him and in obeying Him we can truly live.
You may really think that you are obeying God, but you may be really missing Him. This can happen. When it does you can see your heart, for you will admit that you were wrong. It is when you defend yourself that you know that you really were not open to the truth from the beginning. I have seen people leave their spouse and say that God was with them in this decision. They give all of the biblical reasons, but in their life, after their divorce, is where truth is revealed. Nothing changes. Everything that they were blaming their spouse for, they are still doing. Truth is revealed and they are known as a liar. When we are really following God, we will change. We will obey Him even though it may hurt and we may have to suffer through it.
Jeremiah 39:18, "Because you have trusted Me, I will preserve your life and keep you safe. I the LORD have spoken!" Jeremiah trusted God and obeyed God, even though he was thrown in a cistern for following God's plan. He could have told the king what he wanted to hear. Then he would not have had to suffer the immediate consequences that hurt him. It is in the end that truth was revealed and Jeremiah was rewarded by God for obeying Him. We tend to be under the delusion that we are supposed to be happy all of the time. If we do not feel something then we can just escape. The problem is that we are there no matter where we go. Usually the problem is not someone else, yes they have problems they bring into our lives, but the true problem is yourself. If we cannot obey Him in the cistern, what makes us think that by escaping the trial we will be alright. It may be that God is wanting to see if you will be steady with Him, even though you may hurt in the process. Are you following your own plan? Are you making your plans, then saying it is God? Remember the truth is always revealed. Your life is witness, either for you or against you. Will you be proven a liar, or will Christ be revealed as the Savior?
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