Now if we’re totally honest, we all have times when we don’t have it all together. Times when we’re downright in a tight spot having to handle some very difficult situations and we literally don’t know what to do! Sound familiar? Well believe me when I say this post is completely inspired by this exact season of my life.
It can be extremely difficult when we have been walking this faith walk for some time and there is no sign of ‘The Promise’. I remember early on in my walk with God I would have all these opinions about why did Sarah go and make Hagar get pregnant for Abraham, why couldn’t she just wait on God, “they knew they heard God, right!”… Yes I had thoughts and opinions for days! But when you’re in the hot seat of faith dealing with trials beyond all comprehension, it just hits differently. You suddenly have the grace to understand the miles that others have walked before you, and you learn the power of silence – learning that not speaking on a thing is far more mature than proffering opinions.
As I said this post in wholly inspired by my personal season of trials. I confess, this morning I cried out to God in total bewilderment wanting answers. I waited, and waited and waited – no still small voice. So I decided to do go to my bible and just randomly open it up in the hope that God would speak to me through the scriptures, and yes that He definitely did! I opened up to Jeremiah 13 and started reading until I got to verse 4 where God said:
Take the girlde which you have bought and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in the cleft of the rock. Jeremiah 13:4
The only other time I recalled God telling someone to go to a cleft in a rock was when He told Moses in Exodus 33:20-22 when He was going to honour Moses’ request and show Moses His glory.
Now, it’s significant the circumstances that brought both of them to the cleft of the rock. For Moses, he had just been in a little back and forth with God who had had it with the rebellious, stiff-necked children of Israel. God had just told Moses that they’d been there long enough and they they should proceed to the Promised Land, but that He would not be going with them otherwise He might destroy them on the way (they were that rebellious!). Moses fully understood that he alone could not lead the rebellious lot along that path, so he pleaded with God to let His Presence go with them. Moses found favour in God’s sight and God granted him this request. To be really sure that he would know that God’s presence was really with them, Moses asked God to show him His glory (best and full manifestation of His presence). That is when God told Moses to go up to the cleft in the rock, and His glory would pass by. So for Moses the circumstances were that God had given him a hard task and Moses needed to be sure that God was in it with him so that he led the people properly and had the power to go through it.
Let’s look at Jeremiah. God had had enough of the people doing their own thing, following the desires of their own heart instead of submitting to God’s will for their lives. They were, like in the time of Moses, a rebellious and stiff-necked people. Jeremiah had experienced the brunt of it also having witnessed and experienced evil people seemingly thriving, ‘living their best lives’, people betraying him and essentially just living amidst a world where people were doing their own thing and seeming to do okay whilst he was trying to honour God and feeling the worst of it all. He had questions for God. This reminds me of a song I heard in the early days of my walk with God when I realised it was okay to legitimately have these questions about your journey of faith, when your heart is genuinely for God (see link below).
The point is if we’re really honest most of us have thought at some point in our lives, how is it that some people can go through life being scheming, evil doing deceitful things and amass great success, yet trying to live a noble and honourable life seemingly yields rewards in small measures! This was the point that Jeremiah was at. And like Jonah Jeremiah was growing quite impatient at God’s longsuffering and indulgence of patience and grace on the workers of iniquity. Jeremiah wanted to God to move and swiftly in a grand display that satisfied him that God was God. But like Jonah, Jeremiah had to learn a thing or two about God, which goes for any person whom God has destined to be a leader. To lead people effectively you need to lead with godly qualities. This means you need to have patience, forgiveness, you must passionately want people in their rightful positions to do well and not be so swift to abandon them, after all in any organisation the human resource is one of the most valuable resources. As much as the people were rebellious, God longed and still longs today for people to turn back and submit to Him to be rightfully aligned in relationship with Him. Jeremiah was done with waiting, time was going on and on and nothing seemed to be happening except evil cycles repeating themselves and Jeremiah witnessing the brunt of it. Seeing the paint of Jeremiah’s humanity, God led him (by His word) to the cleft and told him to hide a girdle there, and told Jeremiah to walk away. After some days God told him to return at which point Jeremiah found the girdle spoiled and decayed. God told Jeremiah that he must tell the people to repent and if they don’t repent what happened to the girdle would happen to them. Again, Jeremiah was in a difficult place in his life experiences and to get Jeremiah to a place away from all the drama and speak to him, reveal to him God’s heart and intentions, God led him to the cleft of the rock.
So it’s a good time to think about in our own personal lives whether we’re at a cleft moment. Has God been trying to call us away in solitude to speak to us in the stillness, but we’ve been so caught up in our emotions and life that we are at our wits end? Don’t worry for God is faithful and loving. He may be getting ready to lead us to a cleft-moment: to lead us into that small, narrow place were we can’t turn left nor right and there’s only one way out, and the only way He wants us to go is the way He wants to lead us. Maybe God is leading us to a cleft to speak to us or reveal to us. Sometimes we cannot hear him when we’re too comfortable and enjoying life with all its noise and distractions. Very often we only truly learn and thrive from trials when we are in the midst of difficulty because that’s when we’re paying full attention.
Most people don’t like feeling out of their depths, but that is the true posture of faith. When you surrender total control and lean entirely on God (no plan B and no way out other than how God leads) to pass the test and trial of our faith – all so that we may know God better. Sometimes it’s to know Him as Jehovah Jireh, the Lord My Provider or sometimes it’s any other way that God is the Great I Am!
Whatever it is, remember that God’s plans for you and all of us is for our good, so trust Him. We are His masterpiece! Of all creation, we are what God is most proud of and He calls us His children. So trust Him today. Think of all the great miracles He has done though the course of life and history intervening in all the most difficult human situations from parting the Red Sea to saving Daniel in the lion’s den.
I pray that we learn to surrender gracefully and have full confidence and peace that whatever is happening is happening for us not to us, to propel us into the person God has destined us to become and walk the path that He has prepared for us.
Stay blessed and in peace.
Kingdom Minds 