I have been praying with a friend who, like me, over the last couple of weeks had been observing a recurring verse of scripture. One night, I had managed to make it to our Wednesday service and heard a story about a little boy who was learning about his new bible and was challenged to look up the scripture. Then about twenty minutes after the service, I had a telephone call. It was my friend who is going through a very dark time and he started quoting the same scripture though he wasn’t at the service. Then it was in my devotions again on the 5th. So I have been thinking about it and reading it over and over.
I am not sure if it was necessarily meant for me, or my friend whom I’ve been praying with. My mind has been routinely drawn to the whole passage particularly the following verses where God says “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,”
The verse preceding that, the one I have encountered several times in the last several weeks is one of the most quoted scriptures, especially when we talk with someone feeling hopeless. If you haven’t already guessed, it is from Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I will admit I have seen that scripture many times during the last couple of years. I have also accusingly asked God “so this is your plan to prosper me?” I wonder if he maybe would have sighed and rolled his eyes for a second each time I asked him. Sometimes I would think the Lord was teasing me with that scripture and instead of feeling faithfully lifted up, it made me feel even worse. Talk about a disincentive to read the scripture and pray; feeling poorer for reading the very words meant to lift you up. I guess that’s where a step in faith comes in, when it seems like there are no steps to be taken at all, but you keep praying and keep reading anyway.
Lately, my heart is greatly lifted up as I see his faithfulness to me. I am more and more intrigued by the verses that follow where he says “you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” What an amazing promise! “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you . . .”
How astounding to me that our God, our perfect, Holy, and almighty God would choose to love me and speak to me and answer my prayer—but he also gave me a road map to find him! Lord my prayer is that you will take away from me the things that might get in the way of me seeking you with all of my heart.
So Saturday the 10th is Starving Second Saturday. I want to seek the Lord with all of my heart and find him on Saturday! I want to tell him about the burden I have on my heart for my broken home. I hope you will be able to meet him in prayer too.
