Desolation

Tuesday September 14, In the year of our Lord 2010
My House, Caronport Saskatchewan
11:41 AM, Contemplating and making lunch
Weather = Overcast (everything is still vibrant green!)

Desolation. Last Sunday's service was on Jeremiah and God's declaring desolation for his people who refused to listen to him. It is a hard word, but the reality of it has been made known to me. The first sermon was about how God was the source of living water, water that is running and moving in a land where water is a precious commodity. The people on the other hand, instead of drinking this living water built cisterns, underground ditches to catch the water and hold it. Instead of drinking the fresh good water they try drinking stale months old water from a little kids swimming pool. Even worse though, the cisterns are broken so the water leaks out. But we do this all the time, when we think we need something and try to get it by ourselves.

Now there is the word of desolation. It comes passively by our own stupid decisions and the natural consequences of. It also comes from God when he deliberately speaks to us and we deliberately ignore him. We dry up because we refuse water. We suffocate because we are drowning in our substitutes for water, whatever they may be. (materialism, social groups, electronics, entertainment, the list goes on and on) But the word of desolation is not the end, God always makes a way for the desolation to return to lush green and living land.

I have seen two desolations this week. A friend of mine has been building her own cisterns and has believed lies about herself. In the end she returned to God and looks to Him to bring life back to the desolation. Another friend of mine has been living in his cisterns for I don't know how long. He has made many choices in life that have left him in pain, confused, and alone. He refused to even consider 'biblical crap' or even sound reasoning and continues to wander in a desolate wasteland.

I stop and consider the Fear of God. Who am I to have received his love and patience? I look at the first desolation and see that God is faithful in bringing life. I look at the the second desolation and I am fearful of hardening my heart lest I be given over to my own devices until I am like the prodigal son who only returns because he is penniless, starving, and friendless. These are analogies and metaphors for a larger truth.

God is the source of our life. If we ignore him and take our own direction then that part of our life begins to die. All of us have areas in our life that are dead, and have been dead for a very long time, and often times we are afraid of God's promise to bring them back alive. It is like feeling returning to a frostbitten limb. These dead parts in our life run deep, and the chains that keep us bound bore deep into our hearts. When those chains are rattled the center of our being knows about it and it hurts. But God is the preacher who rattles our chains, he is the comforter who sympathizes with our suffering, he is the surgeon who removes the chains and brings us healing and he is the teacher who leads us into a full life. He also chooses to use his followers for exactly these roles with himself.

So if you hear the words of God today, do not harden your heart but stop and listen.