{"id":5523,"date":"2014-07-08T00:05:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T07:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5523"},"modified":"2014-07-07T15:32:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T22:32:44","slug":"unending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/07\/08\/unending\/","title":{"rendered":"Unending"},"content":{"rendered":"

You understand, O LORD;
\nremember me and care for me.
\nAvenge me on my persecutors.
\nYou are long-suffering\u2014do not take me away;
\nthink of how I suffer reproach for your sake.
\nWhen your words came, I ate them;
\nthey were my joy and my heart\u2019s delight,
\nfor I bear your name,
\nO LORD God Almighty.
\nI never sat in the company of revelers,
\nnever made merry with them;
\nI sat alone because your hand was on me
\nand you had filled me with indignation.
\nWhy is my pain unending
\nand my wound grievous and incurable?
\nWill you be to me like a deceptive brook,
\nlike a spring that fails?
\nTherefore this is what the LORD says:
\n\u201cIf you repent, I will restore you
\nthat you may serve me;
\nif you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
\nyou will be my spokesman.
\nLet this people turn to you,
\nbut you must not turn to them.
\nI will make you a wall to this people,
\na fortified wall of bronze;
\nthey will fight against you
\nbut will not overcome you,
\nfor I am with you
\nto rescue and save you,\u201d
\ndeclares the LORD.
\n\u201cI will save you from the hands of the wicked
\nand redeem you from the grasp of the cruel.\u201d (Jeremiah 15:15-21)<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes, no matter how carefully you follow the instructions, it still won\u2019t work. Jeremiah found joy in God, but not in how his life has gone. Ever since he became God\u2019s spokesperson, he he\u2019d had nothing but unrelieved pain and suffering. No one believed him, the political and religious establishment not only didn\u2019t pay attention to what he told them, they worked against him and threatened him and sometimes followed through on their threats. He wondered if God was as fickle as some of the so-called streams of the land\u2014the wadis of Israel\u2014that had water sometimes, maybe after it rained, but all too often offered up nothing but sand.<\/p>\n

Jeremiah not only felt like he was alone against the world, he really was alone against the world. He felt as if not only did no one care, but that even God had abandoned him, leaving him to twist in the wind. But God brought reassurance, though perhaps not what Jeremiah was looking for. He told Jeremiah that the people opposed to him would continue to oppose him; but their opposition would be ineffective. When Jeremiah thought about being delivered from his problems, he was thinking more in terms of them going away\u2014not that he would simply learn to bear up under them. But whether a problem vanishes, or whether we survive beneath its heavy weight, either way, we have victory. God always takes care of his servants; just not always the way the servants imagine it would be or the way they might want.<\/p>\n

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You understand, O LORD; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering\u2014do not take me away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake. When your words came, I ate them; they were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5524,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523\/revisions\/5524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}