Both
Psalm 56 and Jeremiah 14 call us to reflect on how and by whom our needs are
met. If we are struggling or threatened, who protects us? If we are in physical
need, who provides us food, water, shelter?
It can be easy to forget that all these things ultimately come from God.
It can also be easy to be led astray by false prophets or a false sense of
self-sufficiency. Jeremiah tells us how the people of Judah are reassured by
prophets who claim nothing bad will happen there, that peace will remain; yet
this message is not coming from God. In fact, God is promising the opposite
(for their sacrificial offerings without true repentance). But Jeremiah recalls
the covenant God made with His delivered people and reminds us to look only to
God for provision and reassurance. Not to look to others or trust that we can
provide for ourselves. For not even the rains come without God’s provision...
The
psalmist also exclaims that when we do look to God, when we trust in Him alone
(not ourselves, not false prophets or idols), we can be confident that God is
for us and we are delivered from death. We can walk in the light of life and
not be afraid.
Let us
walk through the wilderness of Lent, looking only to God for provision and
security.
And
if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us?
And
if our God is with us, then what could stand against?
~Our
God by Chris Tomlin
Morgan
Buckner
"Yerres, the Effect of Rain", by Caillebotte, Gustave, 1848-1894, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.
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