Redeemed Captive

You know, I have to be honest with you, dear readers. I have really been struggling this past month in all sorts of ways. In ways that I knew I was in no place to write or to give advice and I knew that I wasn't ready to share either. However, this morning is a new dawn and I would love to explain/ jot all my words down and process them. 

There are three major bible verses that have picked me up and refreshed me. They have changed my life. I'll start out with my greatest struggle. For some reason these past few weeks I have felt like God was silent. That when I lifted my eyes to him I might as well have been talking to the ceiling. I didn't feel his presence like I always have and I didn't feel like I was walking alongside of him. Of course, this just broke me completely. I am nothing without him and I was so very hurt. I turned, in the scriptures, to Jeremiah 29 expecting only to read words. And I did. I only read the words. 

" This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity."

I read these words and I read them only as words. I didn't see any beauty and I wasn't awed. So. I read them again. And then again.

and again.

and again.

and I wrote them on my bathroom mirror.

and then I read it again

and again.

Finally, last night I tore it apart. I saw that in this verse God promises much and that if I trust him and believe in him like I say I do then he is a God who WILL pull through for me. I saw that he is the only One who knows the plans in store for me. That if I call on him he will listen to me. That if I seek him, truly seek him, I will find him. I saw all these things but it wasn’t quite enough...and then the last verse started to hit home in my heart. “and he will bring you back from captivity.” I felt, these past weeks, that I was captive to everything except my Jesus. As he showed me this verse my heart melted. He will always, without fail, no exception, in any circumstance, set me free.

The next piece of scripture that really touched my heart is in Isaiah 33. In this the LORD is a consuming fire. It says “Who can withstand the consuming fire?” which brings me back to Deuteronomy 4:24. “The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” There are so many things in my life, heart, mind, and soul that are not of God and not for the betterment of his kingdom. And while I know that I don’t always know what exactly “it” is that is keeping me away from the purpose of bettering. However, my all-knowing God does and he is showing me many places right now. It burns. It stings. It kills sometimes. But the result is better. The result doesn’t take away from the fact that right now it feels like everything around me is being disintegrated but it does give me purpose and it does give me the leeway I needed to open my heart back up towards God, again.

What I realized is, the second I started hurting I stopped really listening to Jesus and stopped really seeking his kingdom. I stopped looking for him and his majesty that was surrounding me. I started loosing the person that I know God has created me to be and became the girl who would cry herself to sleep. I’m not created to cry myself to sleep. I am created to wake up in the morning and feel refreshed, renewed and awed by the beauty around me. I am created to leap for joy when I see all the beautiful things that my Savior created for me to adore. I am created so that I can bring Jesus all the glory, honor and praise and merely be a vessel for HIS good news. The second I fall short of that, I forget what I was created for and I loose closeness with Jesus. 

Which brings me to my third verse. “My yoke is easy [dear child] and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30) This is what I conclude with because it is simply the truth. We, as humans, cannot carry the weight of the world. WE WERE NOT CREATED TO DO THAT. So, we need to take Jesus’s yoke upon us. When he says that in Matthew he commands us to do so because he knows that is how we best live. 

Today I write simply relieved at the fact that my Savior redeems.