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Monday Morning Blog - MMG 10-17-16

MMG 10/17/2016  COFFEE & THE WORD

As I drink my 2nd cup of coffee, I have the open Bible next to me and I read this: "I cry out, 'My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the LORD is lost!'" Have you ever felt that way? I have. This Bible writer has feelings many of us do. Life deals bad things sometimes. Oh, by the way, the writer is Jeremiah the Prophet. And these words are from Lamentations 3:18 (NLT). I shared some of these words after our Worship Gathering at Creed (www.creedchurch.org) yesterday during AfterGlow.

His next few words express similiar feelings until you get to v21 when he says, "Yet I still dare to hope ..." WOW! Can you see that? There Is Always HOPE! And that's what separates a 'Religion' from a 'Relationship' with Almighty God! God is the God of Hope! Jeremiah in his deep dispair had hope and said so. The whole of v21 says "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this:" ==> Now watch what he says next ... this is what transitions him from dispair and grief to joy and calm. v22-24 (NLT) "The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, 'The LORD is my inheritance; therefore I will hope in Him!'" 

I have some friends who are in a place today Jeremiah was in many years ago. Their life is complicated with grief and dispair. They have shared the depths of their hurt with Kathy and I. It is intense. But they've learned God is their hope. The pain continues but the hope helps overcome and at some point, when the mercies of God are poured down the grief, the pain, the hurt with lessen to the point of non-exisitence. Our God wants you to experience His Peace ... but it has to be His Way. 

So accept His work in you. The bad occurs, yes. But Hope is right behind when we get the perspective of Jeremiah. Then God's mercies become daily and brand new causing us to rejoice. That is awesome. I think I'll drink to that ... coffee that is. And with renewed spirit of hope, I'll go make a batch of eggs for baby girl and I (seeing she cooked the bacon already)!

Go in peace and joy.

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