Jeremiah 43:1-2  When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all these words of the Lord their God, with which the Lord their God had sent him to them, Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie.  The Lord our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’”

The people had come to Jeremiah before this and had asked him to ask the Lord what they were supposed to do and they said they would do whatever God told them to do but as soon as He said they were to stay put in the land that God gave them and He would take care of them and bless them they changed their minds about obeying and decided that if it wasn’t an answer that made sense to them then they were going to do their own thing.  Don’t misunderstand though where these people were coming from, they had seen disaster, war, famine and the slaughter of their people and they were thinking that certainly the best answer was to get out and go to a land that already had peace instead of waiting for God to bring the answers they were looking for to them.

Do you have a situation like that in your life?  A situation where the best answer seems to be to run?  Maybe it’s your job, maybe it’s disciplining your children, could it be a broken friendship or maybe even your marriage?  What situation is it that has pushed you to the ends of your perseverance?  I would plead with you to take it to God before you make a decision to run!  Running is rarely the answer, the grass isn’t any more green on the other side of the fence, you cannot run from a problem because it will just follow you.  It is so important to take every situation to God and ask Him to show you clearly what His answer is and then to believe that He will bring it all to pass.  As it says in Ecclesiastes, “there is a time for every season” so I am not saying there is never a time to run but that is rarely the answer so if you are feeling as though you are ready to take flight make sure that it is God telling you it is time to move on.  If it is time to put this situation behind you and move forward then God’s blessing will be on you in your move but if that is not His answer then you will find disaster instead of blessing is just around the corner!

Seek God in all you do and then once you have His answer don’t be like these people and go your own way.  They did right by asking God but we cannot expect God’s answer to always be what we want to hear.  We have to remember that God sees the whole picture and He knows what is best and what is hidden down each pathway of life.  We need to trust Him with our whole hearts and understand that the best is truly yet to come if we will just believe and follow Him unreservedly.  God isn’t finished with your situation yet so listen carefully to what He has to say and know in your heart that He has a plan and it is better than anything you can come up with on your own.  God had mapped out clearly in chapter 42 what would happen in their future if they would stay put and follow His word vs. if they decided to do their own thing and move to Egypt and they still chose the path of destruction for them, their wives and children.  The choice is yours today; you can seek God and His direction for your life or you can decide you are tired of waiting for His deliverance – the best could be yet to come, it is your choice.

Quote:  “Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”  Samuel Johnson