I Will Follow You...

Through green pastures

And sing hallelujah to Your Name.

I will follow You through dark disasters

And sing hallelujah through the pain.

And even in the shadow of death

I will praise You

And even in the valley I will say

Holy, My God

You are worthy of all my praise

Holy, My God

You are worthy of all my praise

And You are seated on You throne in heaven

And You see all of us down here

And You promised You will not abandon

So I shall not fear

And even in the shadow of death 

I will praise You

And even in the valley I will say

Holy, My God

You are worthy of all my praise

Holy, My God

You are worthy of all my praise

You made every star 

And You taught them how to shine

You knew my name before there was time

All this is part of Your glorious design

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Holy, My God

You are worthy of all my praise

Holy, My God

You are worthy of all my praise

You are worthy of all my praise

"All My Praise" by Selah (click this link to listen to the song)

This is the song that has been on repeat both on my computer and in my heart and soul.  

I don't have any clue what all God is working together right now, but it doesn't matter whether I do or not. What I know is that my God is good. The Alpha and Omega has never failed.  He is ever present and ever faithful.  And the Truth is faithful to His promises.  He is worthy of all praise!  Not just for what He's done and for what He is doing, but for who He is!  

I listened to a sermon from Stephen Furtick tonight as I was making a mess in the kitchen.  Furtick spoke about anxiety, talking about how it grieves the heart of God when we are anxious in our hearts.  Anxiety is a sin! But he also explained that anxiety usually starts with an unmeet need in our hearts.  The issue is how we view God in the midst of our needs. And I really want to share the three points Furtick made of what God is NOT:  

   1) God is not incompetent.

   2) God is not indifferent.

   3) God is not forgetful.

Ok, great.  Right?  A list.  Just what you needed. Read them out loud.  Take captive the doubts that fill your heart.  Go on, read them out loud.  Good!  

As He tends to do, God took that simple list and starting working in my heart.  Joy has been on my heart and in my mind a lot lately, and tonight He showed me a little more about anxiety and joy.  In Jeremiah, we see God warn the Israelites that He is sending them as exiles into the land of Babylon. Why?  

"And when you tell his people all these words, and they say to you,'Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us?  What is our iniquity?  What is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?' then you shall say to them; 'Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the LORD,and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, 

every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.' "  

Jeremiah 16:10-12

But this is the promise that the Lord gave to the exiles:   

     "For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me.  When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." Jeremiah 29:10-14

Each of those three points of "what God is not" are confirmed in this Scripture!  So how do we handle the exile that comes before the fulfillment of the promise?

Before He gave them the promise, but after He had told them of the exile, He said, 

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, 

whose trust is the LORD.  

He is like a tree planted by water, 

that sends out its roots by the stream,

 and does not fear when heat comes, 

for its leaves remain green, 

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

 for it does not cease to bear fruit."

  The heart is deceitful about all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?  

"I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, 

to give every man according to his ways, 

according to the fruit of his deeds."  

Jeremiah 17:7-10

It just hit me when I read this passage this time...an unmeet need in our hearts and deceptive hearts.  

If we know our hearts are deceptive, how careful we must be to keep our hearts focused on Christ  ("Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." Luke 10:27) when we have unmeet needs.  Why else would we be told "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life (ESV)" or "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life (NIV)" Proverbs 4:13?

So back to Jeremiah and the Israelites....here they are being told they will be sent into exile, and yet "blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD."  And then that man described as "planted by water."  Are you seeing this?  The man who trust in the LORD is like a tree planted by water.  Who is the Living Water, the source of our life??? Yeah, the LORD.  Jeremiah 17:13b "for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water." So when we trust in God, we are planted in the source of life!  When our hearts are fixed on the LORD, our wellspring is a never-failing, never-weakening source of strength and life!  

"He does not fear when heat comes....is not anxious in the year of drought."  The man who trusts in the LORD faces the heat,  faces the drought. "For its leaves remain green...it does not cease to bear fruit." In the heat and the drought, the tree is sustained by the source of water.  And not just sustained at a minimum level of survival, but with green green leaves and fruit!   Our source of life is the Creator of the universe.  The LORD Almighty not only sustains those who trust in Him, but he brings forth fruit in them!  

What a message for those about to enter capitivity, soon to be taken from their homeland, up-rooted!  Plant yourself by what cannot be removed from you, and He will bring you life and work beautiful things in and through you, even in a strange place, even in desperate times, even in times of despair.  

In John 16:31-33, Jesus was telling the disciples what to expect, 

"Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe?  Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, 

when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.  Yet I am not alone, 

for the Father is with me.  I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.  

In the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world."

The Israelites had rejected God.  He sent them into exile so that he could call them back to himself.  In Hebrews, we are told that we will receive the discipline of God. 

 "Consider him [Jesus] who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

  'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, 

nor be weary when reproved by him. 

 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, 

and chastises every son whom he receives.'

It is for discipline that you have to endure.  God is treating you as son. 

 For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?" Hebrews 12:3-7

*Note here: The Israelites were warned beforehand  that they would be taken into exile, and in both John and Hebrews, we are also warned beforehand of the tribulation we would face in the world and of the discipline we would receive as the children of God.  How gracious is He to tell us before!!!  

 Back to Hebrews....so then it continues to exhort us to endure the discipline of God our Father:

"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields 

the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Heb. 12:11

Did anyone else catch the fruit thing?  Remember back in Jeremiah, the man who trusts in the LORD "does not cease to bear fruit."  Here we are told one of those fruits: "the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

The last verse we read in Jeremiah said, "I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his hands." His discipline comes as He searches our hearts, our deceitful hearts, our hearts that are the wellsprings of life, not to punish us, but to prepare us, to mold us into the people He has called us to be.

  

"Therefore lift your dropping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for you feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint by rather be healed."  Heb. 12:12-13

Ok, jumping back one more time, Jeremiah, the prophet who was the one to deliver the messages to the people (not the most fun, safe, or enjoyable job), cried out to God in chapter 17 verse 14, 

"Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise."

Oh that we could fully embrace the joy of the LORD in every situation!  

"Through him [Jesus] then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, 

that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name."

Hebrews 13:15

LORD, forgive me of my doubt, of my anxiety, of my stubborn refusal to give everything over to You!  You are my Redeemer, and I pray that when I can't see a way, I will look to You, the WAY!  When I am weary, Lord, restore me in Your strength not my own.  For You are my strength and my shield, my portion forever.  God, may we each walk boldly forward into the lives You have called us to.  May we be deeply rooted in You so that come the deserts of loneliness, the heat of joblessness, the stress of bills to pay and low bank accounts, the fear of not knowing what's next, come what may, we will be filled in You.  You have overcome this world!  You are our Victor!  You are our very breathe of life.  LORD, make us steadfast in the trials and faithful in even the very thoughts of our hearts.  You are the song of my lips!  To You be ALL praise. FOREVER.  Fill Your people with Your power that our lips may ever praise you and that by Your strength will REJOICE in all things!! The joy of the Lord is my strength!!!