faithful in this moment

I am a dreamer. I am a goal setter. I am a planner. 

When you combine these three things, it can be a recipe for a contentment disaster. 

Because I am always looking ahead and aspiring for something, my heart is easily consumed with what I don't yet have or with the goal that I have yet to achieve. 

In Jeremiah 29, we read the prophet's letter to the exiles. 

These people had been taken from their homeland (Jerusalem) and led into exile in Babylon. 

Undoubtedly, their hearts were in anguish for home as their future hung in the balance. 

God starts Jeremiah's letter like this: 

"Build houses and live in them;

plant gardens and eat their produce.

Take wives and have sons and daughters;

take wives for your sons,

and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters;

multiply there, 

and do not decrease."

Jeremiah 29: 5,6

Surely and rightfully these people longed for home. 

Their dreams looked very different from the reality they were living. 

As they cried out to God, this was His puzzling and profound response. 

Make a home there. 

Work the ground and reap it's bounty. 

Grow in stature. Grow in relationships. Grow your family. 

Wait--what?!

They are in--what appears to be from the outside--an unfair and undeserved place. 

They are crying out for deliverance and this is the response?!

As I look at life and the journey that I have already  taken to arrive where I am, I see God working in much the same way in my own life. 

Although my heart has hurt and I have struggled to understand His ways and His methods in my life, He has always spoken this quiet truth to my heart: be faithful in this moment. 

Psalm 37 is a beautiful song of contentment and hope. 

'Trust in the Lord, and do good;

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in Him, and He will act.' (vv3-5)

Dwell in the land. Befriend faithfulness. 

Delight yourself in the Lord. 

So often, our hearts quietly say: "If you give me the desires of my heart,  THEN I will delight in you" 

But God is calling us to something better. 

He says, 

"Sweet child--won't you love me for Who I am rather than for what I do? 

Won't you draw near to me in this land of exile and get to know my heart for you?"

Friend...

wherever God has you today, 

whatever land you are living in, 

I pray that you will befriend faithfulness. 

I pray that you will commit your way to the Lord, walk forward in obedience and leave the responses of others, the results and the circumstances before the King who knows all things and sees all things and holds all things. 

Don't stop dreaming...

Just remember that when we are faithful with little--in the everyday comings and goings of the life we live right now--we will be entrusted with much. Our desires will come to be because our desires will be summed up in the person of God. As we live in this exile land, we learn that the Person of God is our nearest companion. 

And that my friend, is the greatest gift of all. 

hope. 

tiffany