{"id":6619,"date":"2015-06-16T00:05:07","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T07:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6619"},"modified":"2015-06-15T21:15:11","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T04:15:11","slug":"hell-come-if-you-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/06\/16\/hell-come-if-you-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"He’ll Come If You Ask"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is what the Sovereign LORD,
\nthe Holy One of Israel, says:
\n\u201cOnly in returning to me
\nand resting in me will you be saved.
\nIn quietness and confidence is your strength.
\nBut you would have none of it.
\nYou said, \u2018No, we will get our help from Egypt.
\nThey will give us swift horses for riding into battle.\u2019
\nBut the only swiftness you are going to see
\nis the swiftness of your enemies chasing you!
\nOne of them will chase a thousand of you.
\nFive of them will make all of you flee.
\nYou will be left like a lonely flagpole on a hill
\nor a tattered banner on a distant mountaintop.\u201d
\nSo the LORD must wait for you to come to him
\nso he can show you his love and compassion.
\nFor the LORD is a faithful God.
\nBlessed are those who wait for his help.
\nO people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem,
\nyou will weep no more.
\nHe will be gracious if you ask for help.
\nHe will surely respond to the sound of your cries. (Isaiah 30:15-19)<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can do things your way or God\u2019s way. Like a small child telling his father, \u201cI can do it myself,\u201d so the children of Israel were not interested in what God had to offer them. They were convinced that they had a good plan and that everything was under control. God pointed out that they were mistaken, but he let them try it their way first.<\/p>\n

In the time of Moses, God had promised his people that if they were faithful, one person could make a thousand enemies flee. If they were not faithful, God promised that one enemy would make a thousand Israelites flee. Five hundred years later, God used Isaiah to remind them of those promises.<\/p>\n

God would have rather that his people had listened to him. He had Isaiah offer them the chance to do the right thing. God loved his people and he didn\u2019t want to see them hurt or unhappy. But he loved them so much that he set them free and waited for them to realize the error of their ways\u2014as he knew they would\u2014so that they would, in the end, freely choose him. God promised his people that whenever they finally called out to him for help, whenever it was that they finally realized that they really couldn\u2019t do it themselves, he would be there to help them pick up the pieces. God is always near, always ready to help us, no matter how many bad choices we\u2019ve made. All we have to do is ask.<\/p>\n

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This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: \u201cOnly in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it. You … 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\/6619"}],"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=6619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6621,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619\/revisions\/6621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}