Promises

At my aunt's house the other day I noticed a magnet on her fridge. It was black with white words that simply said, "I promise" - God.

I love the stark truth of that. God promises. And because all of God's promises are yes and amen (2Cor 1:20) and God is not a man that He should lie (Num 23:19) those two words mean everything. When I began to think of all that He has promised through His Word and to me personally I was sorry I ever doubted, that my faith was ever weak. God promises. That should be more than enough.

Over the last several years I have been going through some difficult things. I know I am not the only one who has had struggles and trials. But it left me feeling weary and disheartened. I felt I had lost parts of myself during the storm. I wondered how long it would last. I empathized with the Israelites wondering around in the wilderness for 40 years. Such a dry, desperate place.

But over the last couple of months God has been speaking to me, encouraging me, making me promises. I love it when He does that, even though sometimes it seems He waits until I'm about ready to give up all together. He led me to a few scriptures.

He reintroduced me to the 23rd Psalm and when I came to," He restores my soul", my soul leapt and shouted yes!

I have written before about how much I love Hosea. I've even picked my life verses from the second chapter, verses 19-20. But God drew my attention to the previous verses 14-16.
"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort (to her heart). I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope: She shall sing there as in the days of her youth...And it shall be in that day says the Lord, "That you will call Me My Husband and no longer call Me My Master."

Then I happened to be reading in Jeremiah the other day and came across a couple of verses, Ch 31, v 2,3,12. Thus says the Lord: "The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness"...The Lord has appeared of old to me saying, " I have loved you with an everlasting love: Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. and I will build you, and you will be rebuilt...Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion. Streaming to the goodness of the Lord. Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden and they shall sorrow no more at all."

The definition of the word soul in Psalms 23 is this: A life, a living being, soul, self, person, mind, personality, inner desires and feelings.

In Hosea the valley of Achor literally meant trouble.

Looking at these verses I felt encouraged and excited. God is at work restoring my soul, reclaiming those parts of me that I thought I had lost, my soul and it's personality, inner desires that I thought dead, my self.

I haven't been wandering around in the wilderness forgotten. In fact, Hosea says God led me there, to bless me (the vineyard would signify blessing) and that hope would come out of trouble. A real relationship with God not as my Master, but as the One who loves me more than anything else, is being developed in that wilderness. And Jeremiah brings it home with the promise of grace in the wilderness, a promise of rebuilding, and a well-watered garden of the soul. That is pretty miraculous considering it happens in the desert place.

Who knew such good things came out of a wilderness place?  God does. And that is why we can trust Him no matter what we are going through or where we find ourselves. That is why His promises are worth so much, because only He sees the beginning from the end and only He loves us enough to meet us in the desperate, barren places. He not only meets us, but causes us to thrive there.

God promises.