“The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever; forsake not the works of thine hands.” (Psalms 138:8)
Somedays I wonder, and somedays I have no idea how He is going to pull it off when all I seem to do is mess up. As we reflect over the past year one thing we seem to always do is look back at “all” the things we “messed up”. Growing up I was always amazed by the children of Israel’s inability to stay right with God, I could not for the life of me understand why they were constantly “messing up” allowing sin to take over their lives. I thought it to be the most absurd thing that they wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years. All through Bible history it was a constant pattern of them “messing up” and falling into captivity followed by God forgiving them and rescuing them each and every time they called out to Him. But as life came my way and my youth faded away leaving me looking back over 40 years of my own life I began to see myself as one of the Israelites with constant episodes of my failure and God’s faithfulness to forgive.
“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27)
Jeremiah and God were having a conversation that I could totally relate to, during which God quite eloquently reminded Jeremiah of who He is and what He has the power to do. Yes, He acknowledged the iniquity of Israel and the wrath that had been poured out on their lives because of their sin; but He assured Jeremiah that He had the power to bring them back to where they needed to be and that He would honor the promise that He had made. “Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven the in mine anger, and in my fury and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place and I will cause then to dwell safely; And they shall be my people and I will be their God.” (Jeremiah 32: 37-38)
And if that wasn’t convincing enough for Jeremiah, God continued. “Thus saith the Lord the maker thereof, the Lord that formed it, to establish it; the Lord is his name; Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things , which thou knowest not.” (Jeremiah 33:2-3) So many times we forget exactly who God is, we seem to place on Him the same parameter of abilities as those we possess. We seem to forget that we are talking about God, the maker of the universe, the very one that spoke everything into existence. If He says He will perfect that which concerneth me, then that is exactly what He will do. I just need to get out of His way and stop bemoaning the woes of who I am or have been and trust the promise of who He says I will one day be. Yes, I am going to “mess up”. Yes, I am going to have moments when I fail Him, but each day that I look to Him trusting the work that He is doing in my life I will find myself one step closer to who I am to one day become in Him. It is through Him that I will be perfected, it is through nothing that I can or ever will do. Just like the children of Isreal I will be His and He will be my God and then I will know the promise of Jeremiah 33: 6. “Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.” One day we will be cured of the sin that we are faced with in this world and in that moment we will know the abundance of peace and truth.