The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:25-26 ESV
Our oldest grandson flew home last night from a visit with friends back in Pennsylvania. His family went to pick him up at the airport, and while his dad checked for the flight’s arrival, the younger ones milled around looking for snacks, but, the fourteen year-old, with his newly acquired cell phone decided to begin texting, “Are you here yet Amadeo? How about now? Now? Now? Now? Now?” Since it was a family group text, soon all our phones began pinging like a popcorn machine at the movies. While Alex was having a blast, the rest of us were left rolling our eyes. But just then God reminded me that sometimes I am just like Alex. In my prayers I have been asking; “When are you going to fix things, bring evil men to justice and give us peace? How about now? Now? Now? Now? Now?” Maybe Alex’s enthusiastic impatience makes me laugh so hard because we are alot alike. In today’s verse the prophet Jeremiah, shares with us what God had taught him after the destruction of Jerusalem. Thousands of soldiers had been killed, tens of thousands of civilians had starved to death during the siege, and most of the survivors were marched off as slaves. There had been no miraculous rescue or escape for God’s people, and yet in the midst of the devastation, God showed Jeremiah that He was still in control. God’s plan for him was to as Kipling once wrote, “keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs.” No matter how bad things get, we must believe that God’s “Now!” is way better than ours and that His goodness and salvation extends far beyond the arrival time we are hoping for in our prayers!
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Matthew 5:43-44 ESV
Many of us (myself included) have been earnestly praying for the people of Ukraine during this last 6-8 months as we have seen the terrible suffering of her people. But the current media reports over the victories that Ukraine has been winning lately, also brings us face to face with a heart issue that Jesus addressed about our attitude towards our enemies. When I read of soldiers being wiped out or large numbers of casualties on the Russian side, it is too easy to fall into a celebratory mood, saying under our breath, “serves them right!” But we cannot call ourselves Christians forgetting the fact that our Lord Jesus commanded us to love our enemies and to pray for them.
You see, the people of Israel faced some very real, very evil enemies, like Pontius Pilate, who slaughtered a number of people from Galilee while they were going to the temple to worship. Then there was Herod, who had John the Baptist decapitated and Pharisees who were plotting some way to have Jesus killed. None of these guys would have been anywhere on my prayer list, and that is a shameful disobedience to Christ’s command. So, as the sunsets tonight and we start our prayers, we need to add some people to the list. There are poor young teenagers from Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and farmers from little villages in the Caucuses. They have chosen a different side in this war than we would have liked, but their lives are also precious to Jesus. He also chose to die on the cross for them, as He did for us, and for all of us, He cried out, “Father forgive them; for they know not what they are doing!”
praise2worshipdotnet 
You must be logged in to post a comment.