Jeremiah 16:17-20-Lord, you are my strength and fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble!…Can people make their own god? The gods they make are not real gods at all!
Webster’s defines fickle as changeable or unstable in affection, interest, loyalty, etc. It also mentions to deceive, akin to betrayal or deceit. It says in Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NLT)-The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I know! I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives.
I want to be found faithful in all things regarding my life as a whole, as I am sure most would say they agree, but there are times in every life, in every sincere love walk, that we find we have been fickle in our actions, thoughts, words and/or deeds. And this perhaps solely was done unawares and without malicious intent or a conscious desire to deceive anyone. Have you not experienced periods of time, perhaps gone through seasons lasting longer than we desire, when the stresses of life seem to take a toll on us and before we know it our passion for Christ has dimmed? At times we may feel a lukewarmness toward the things of the Lord, or just a weariness in general.
It has been my experience, that even the most zealous for His word, the most impassioned for Christ, the greatest of servants have moments when they realize they have failed. Our hearts are fickle at times not because we have lost our desire for God and all the beauty and love that we can’t even put into words or have space to talk about here, but because we have fallen into the trap of trying to do all things ourselves, on our own, and without truly and wholeheartedly relying on God daily. What looks to some as hypocritical and fickle is merely an overzealous attempt on our part to do God’s job as well as our own, which when put into practice, will not bring one success to say the least.
God allows us to wake up some mornings and ask, “What has happened and where am I”, and more painfully, “O God, where are You?”, so that we become aware we have moved away from Him in all our busy-ness, rather than drawn closer to Him. His desire is to fellowship with us. His desire is to allow us to know Him as we are known by Him. No task is generally so important, or a desire of the heart so pressing, as to have no time to seek God concerning the issues that can send us scurrying off into cyberspace or elsewhere looking for help and direction, when our faithful God was there all along, waiting with the answer, and a good rest for the soul along with it. It surely must make God laugh to see us in our moment of seeming triumph, thinking we have it all figured out, only to realize in amazement our way won’t work at all.
It says in Jeremiah 17:14-17 (NLT)-O Lord, you alone can heal me; you alone can save. My praises are for you alone! 15 People scoff at me and say, “What is this ‘message from the Lord’ you keep talking about? Why don’t your predictions come true?” 16 Lord, I have not abandoned my job as a shepherd for your people. I have not urged you to send disaster. It is your message I have given them, not my own. 17 Lord, do not desert me now! You alone are my hope in the day of disaster. Well, sadly I have had people ask me, “how can you write like you do and your life be such a mess?”. What others fail to realize or take the time to understand is man is a triune being. We are created a spirit, a physical body, and a soul which consists of the mind, will and emotions. My physical body may be fine, but my mind and emotions may be a mess or vice versa. But the spiritual man devoted to living for Christ will always succeed. What may appear to some to be hypocritical on our part or deceitful at times, unstable even in their critique, is just a work in progress in our lives. When we come to God and make Jesus the Lord of our lives we are not at that moment made perfect in man’s description of “perfect”, rather we are covered in Jesus’ blood, given the robe of righteousness, a crown of glory, and the Holy Spirit to comfort us and teach us. We begin a life-long journey on this side of heaven to learn to be all and do all God desires for us, and the journey at times takes us through some pretty rough terrain. There may be times we despair of even our very lives, but through it all God will be there with us, and beloved, if God be for us, who dare be against us?
I do not say the journey will always be easy, or the life lived for Christ a rose garden, but I do say He is faithful to bring you through the hardest of times, in peril or in the deep, through the flood and the fire, and you will come out of each experience richer, sweeter, stronger, more alive than ever before, with wisdom you never knew existed, and a trust in God that is priceless.
Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NLT) But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. 8 They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deepinto the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by the long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.
So be blessed today. Continue to trust in the Lord even when nothing makes sense and friends start to abandon you. Let the Lord be your hope and confidence, for worldly hope and confidence is fickle at best, unstable and deceitful. I encourage you with these words of inspiration to “be the tree” – the planting of the Lord, for He knows what you need and He has promised to never leave you or forsake you.
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