Day 172- Forcing The Issue

📖Daily Reading

 Jeremiah 39-44

🎥 Video  

Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.

 

📝 Reflection  

Jeremiah 42: 5-17

    Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord your God be a faithful witness against us if we refuse to obey whatever he tells us to do! Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord our God to whom we are sending you with our plea. For if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us.” 

   Ten days later the Lord gave is his reply to Jeremiah. So he called for Johanna son of Korean and the other fulfills leaders and for all the people from the least to the greatest. He said to them, “You sent me to the Lord, the God of Israel, with you request, and this was his reply: ‘Stay here in this land. If you do, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. Do not fear the king the king of Babylon anymore,’ says the Lord. ‘For I am with you and will save you and rescue you from his power. I will be merciful to you by making him kind, so he will let you stay here in your land.’

   “But if you refuse to obey the Lord your God, and if you say, ‘We will not stay here; instead, we will go to Egypt where we will be free from war, the call to arms, and hunger’; then hear the Lord’s message to the remnant of Judah. This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and live there, the very war and famine you fear will catch up to you, and you will die there. That is the fate awaiting everyone of you who insists on going to live in Egypt. yes, you will die from war, famine, and disease. None of you will escape the disaster I will bring upon you there.’

 

As we continue on through Jeremiah; after we see the writing on the wall then human instinct often kicks in in one of two ways, deny and bury our heads in the sand, the other very common reaction is to take charge and force the issue!  The second is what we are going to talk about today. It is laid out pretty well for us in chapter 42, I wanted to just put the whole chapter in but I cut it down to about half. Essentially what we have left in Judah after the Babylonian invasion is a remnant of survivors and a few leaders in charge. Those in charge are trying to come to a consensus of what course of action to take next. 

I think we do this as well, we have a ‘council of selves’ within that weigh all the options, discuss all the possibilities as a part of the decision making process, at least I do😉. It can often be treated as something that needs to be rushed through, with arbitrary deadlines, and intense pressure. We force things sometimes to our own detriment. The line that caught me attention was in verse 7 - ‘Ten days later…’. I rarely pray to God and wait 1 day much less 10 days for a response 🤷‍♀️.  Boy, I guess I need to work on my patience, I think some of my feeling like I am taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back is this very issue and the ‘need’ to will or force things to happen ahead of their time or out of order. 

The growth happens in the journey not at the finish line, but we see the writing on the wall and then we think we see the finish line and potential dangers if we don’t rush or force it. Then by the very means with which we are trying to force in order to avoid certain outcomes, we bring them upon ourselves in a faster more intense way. We undermine ourselves in our compulsion to force things and bring about the very thing we are trying to avoid.  As parents or even onlookers don’t we see it clearly and shake our heads going, ‘I told you so’, but when you are in it you can’t see the ‘forest for the trees’.  It seems right at the time, and action makes us feel good, we don’t feel like we are ‘doing’ anything in the waiting. Like watching grass grow, but the reality is that grass is growing, something is happening even when it seems like nothing is. 

I have been right there in real life this week trying to force a lot of issues. I have felt overwhelmed, out of control and the more I tried to control or get impatient the more quickly I heaped more overwhelm, chaos and impatience on myself. This week I have been on a work/vacation and trying to do both full time with a lot of people, that doesn’t work very well and leads to a lot of frustration, which is the opposite of what this trip was for. I finally let go, relaxed and also forgave myself and others and now that it is almost over, I am ready to stay a few more days.🤣 Lesson learned! When you try to meet everyone’s needs, and make sure every one is happy, and you are the one that can’t be happy until everyone is happy - guess what … you can’t ‘force’ happiness and fun!  I also have been a little later with my Rise and Shine routine for the same reasons and getting stressed out that I was somehow now doing it ‘right’ because it was a bit out of the ‘normal’, so this morning I almost caught myself wanting to give into the desire to force things and rush through the process just to meet an arbitrary deadline for myself. 

I needed this message from Jeremiah this morning myself in real time, it helped me to relax, take a deep breath and  get focused back on what was truly important which in the personal growth, connecting with God through his word and getting stronger through patience, consistency and purpose. Trusting the process and what it is delivering in the process, if I forced it and rushed it I would miss it. It isn’t about a destination, an outcome or a finish line, it really is about the journey. Fear, trying to satisfy everyone, get consensus in an effort to prevent a perceived outcome ahead of the game is actually undermining the very thing we want. Especially when you go to God in prayer, but not in earnest prayer but with your own agenda and what you are really asking for is for God to bless your agenda vs. really willing to listen, be patient, get in alignment with Him and do what He is telling you to do, not the other way around.

What about you do you catch yourself trying to force things?  Can you learn to relax, breath and practice patience and trusting God and his agenda and timing?  Another phrase I like to use myself now as a reminder is to ‘hold things loosely’, when I catch myself gripping too tight. The tighter I try to grip and control, the more I am actually undermining the very thing that I say I want… when I loosen my grip.. I allow myself to receive vs. take..  God’s ways are not our ways, which is why they work 🤔

✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt 

What about you do you catch yourself trying to force things?  Can you learn to relax, breath and practice patience and trusting God and his agenda and timing?  

📖Tomorrows Reading

 Jeremiah 45-52

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