God Is Always With You
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
My dear encountered couples:
Jeremiah lived during very sorrowful times. The entire Jewish world was being torn apart by the Babylonians and the Egyptians. After many unsuccessful years of trying to get his people to reform, his own countrymen finally murdered him while he was in exile in Egypt. Our passage from his book gives us a look inside of him. He was deeply worried, very frightened of everything and everybody. He was hated for his prophecies of doom; he lived in terror for his life.
Do you have days like that? Some might call it paranoia, and maybe sometimes it is a little of that. But do you have days when you feel afraid? Maybe you wake up feeling afraid. You don’t know what it is, but something hangs heavy over you. You are not as relaxed as usual. Something is wrong, and you don’t know what. Or maybe you do know what. Maybe there are things in your life that you know about and they frighten you. Jeremiah had those days. Probably everybody does. What did Jeremiah do?
He probably shook in his boots and reached for nervous pills. Seriously, he told himself this: “The Lord is with me, like a mighty champion; my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph. Sing to the Lord,” he told himself, “Praise the Lord, for he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked.” He believed God was with him.
Try to convince yourself of that. God is always with you, even in you. He is taking care of you. No matter what you are facing, imagined or real, he will most definitely get you through it. Trust in God is much better than a whole truckload of nervous pills or booze. Their effect passes. God remains with you forever as your best friend.
