Jeremiah 4:19-6:15, Colossians 1:18-2:7, Psalms 77:1-20, Proverbs 24:23-25
Today is October 5th welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and a privilege and an honor to be here with you today as we move into this workweek as we take the next step forward together in the Scriptures, the…the grand adventure that we find ourselves on as we move through this year together. So, we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Today Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 19 through 6 verse 15.
Commentary:
Okay. So, Psalm 77 is what we read today when we were moving through the Psalms portion and man there’s not a better argument for why we should journal our way through the Bible and maybe even through our lives. And we’ve talked about journaling a number of times as we move through the Scriptures. We see the president kind of set with the monuments and the piles of rocks that would be stacked up. What is being portrayed here is a way of remembering what happened so that what happened isn’t forgotten. And we see a deep soul cry in the Psalm today. “I cry out to God. Yes, I shout out.” And let’s think about it. When do we cry out to God? I mean we…we can cry out to God if we are in a sense of worship. Mostly we cry out, like shout out to God because we are done, like because we are overwhelmed, we are cooked crispy, like everything feels like it’s falling apart and we are suffering and it’s agonizing and so we cry out to God. And this is the psalmist Asaph today, “I cry out to God. I shout O that God would listen to me. When I was in deep trouble I searched for the Lord. All night long I prayed with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted.” Oh…there’s such honesty in that. We should all be able to understand where this is coming from. It’s just that Asaph actually gives voice to this. These thoughts, these kinds of things, these are the things we stuff. We just keep them inside. It’s like, “I could never…never say that out loud.” I mean…some…some of us are good at just telling God how we feel but usually this is the kind of sentiment that we…we just go like, “yeah, you’re just being a big baby. Suck it up, move on.” But the psalmist asks some really penetrating questions and likely they are questions we have asked. “Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will He never again be kind to me? Is His unfailing love gone forever? Have His promises permanently failed? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Had He slammed the door on His compassion?” Asaph is giving voice…like I just read this out of the Bible. This is ancient. People have been having these kinds of feelings for thousands of years wrestling through these. Like we might think we wrestle through these things when we try to say them but it’s just like a new phenomenon? This is not true. This has always been going on. So, Asaph kind of concludes, “this is my fate. The most-high has turned His hand against me.” Have we never felt that way before? It usually goes away, right? We get some context, we get some perspective, but in the moment that feels so true. So, what does Asaph do? Like, he’s poured his heart out. He’s been brutally honest about what he’s feeling like. But what does he do? I continue to quote the Psalm. “But then I recall all you have done O Lord. I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. Can’t stop thinking about your mighty works.” Okay, so in the moment where we feel like everything is falling apart, we get pulled into a hurricane basically and we are just being pummeled if we have nothing to remember, like if we can’t remember God’s faithfulness. And this is what Asaph is essentially teaching us. “Then I recall all you have done. I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.” And, so, as we move through the Bible, but also through our lives to be able to write down…and it can be a religious like tradition where it’s an every day thing, it can be a once week thing, it can be a once a month thing, whatever, but just to kind of chronicle our own journey in our own hand after some fashion gives us literally the written testament of God’s faithfulness in our lives. So, when we find ourselves in those moments where we’re just totally gettin’ leveled, to be able to remember God’s faithfulness when we can’t see or feel it is a game changer. And we see this borne out in the Scriptures.
Prayer:
Father we thank You for the ability to write. We thank You for the ability to articulate. We thank You for the ability to chronicle Your faithfulness in our lives and we thank You that this has been done in the Scriptures, not only as a model for us, but as something we can look at and say, “okay. Honesty is coming off of these pages and leading me into a true place that can really help me.” And, so, we thank You for that. And Father as we do chronicle our lives as we do write down the things that are going on, may they be exactly that, a place to return to say, “O, I thought I was going to get destroyed in that situation but I’m still here and I remember that fear and I remember being agonized over all that. But I’m reading these pages and remembering but I see that I’m still here. You were faithful. You brought me through.” We thank You for the ability to do that. This is what the Bible does for us over the course of thousands of years. But we have our own story to tell, our own story with You. And, so, come Holy Spirit as we continue…as we continue to write the story of our lives, or maybe as we just begin to start to write down some of the days and some of the happenings and some of the things going on in our lives. Come Holy Spirit, lead us to create a testament of our own, a testimony of Your faithfulness through our lives. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here
tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Good morning Daily Audio Bible. So, I just heard the news Ms. China, Mr. Ben, we have the same last name, Brown that’s awesome! Congratulations to Jill Brian in the whole Hardin household. God bless you. Heavenly Father, thank You that You have given us Your written word, the word that these…this family has been anointed by…by Your hands and the words of…of Your mouth the theirs and to our ears over the years casting the bread upon the water and reaping great harvests. I ask You to bless this new baby and their parents and their grandparents and their children and their children for generations to come. Lord You said that children are an inheritance from You and that blessed is the man whose arrow…they’re like arrows that are shot out into the world and blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. So, I pray that…that just as Brian and Jill have trained their children up in the way that they should go they are training us up and the legacy is and amazing one and it’s just from God because of God because of the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts that we would seek Him daily and share this together. Lord I remember meeting China when she was 12 at the Wind…the Wind Farm café and Max was out riding his skateboard in the parking lot and Tyler was doing the audio and Christian was there. Just thank You so much for this family. I pray bless them. And thank You that the followed Your commission from Adam and Eve.
Hello family this is Demetri I’m calling from Oregon. Some of you might remember I called regarding my marriage, my wife, and everything that’s been going on with that. My wife did apply for divorce even though I told her I didn’t believe in divorce and I will not go for it. I received the paperwork and the court date is set for…for the beginning of November. I’m staying faithful to God and believing that He’s in control and He’s gonna do what…what is best for both of us. I pray and continue to pray that restoration is what’s gonna happen, but I believe that God can use this situation even if through divorce He can…He can restore us anyway. So, I pray and ask you family to continue praying for my wife, continue praying that that she will seek Him, she will find Him, and she will do the right thing. Thank you, family for…for always being there for me and Brian thank you for this amazing platform. I’ve been with you guys for about five years now and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. So, if you can pray for my wife, pray for me to not lose hope, not lose faith, to continue relying that God is in control I’d really appreciate it. Thank you everybody for your prayers and for always being there for me.
Oh China and then and baby what wonderful news you had today and I listened to your dad earlier and it made me remember how my husband and I felt when our baby girl finally told us that she was pregnant and it turned out she had a baby girl too. We were just walkin’ on air and when I knew I was pregnant back then we didn’t know the sex but that first Christmas, and I want to warn you, brace yourself, every time we would sing Christmas carols I would just have tears streaming down my face because I was so happy and so humbled that I was going to the same thing that Mary went through to have Jesus. And, so, oh, you know that so many prayers are with you and with this baby and take care of yourself. We love you. We love Ben we love the baby. God bless you. Bye.
Hi family this is his little Cherry in Canada and I want to pray for Kim in Texas, her husband, and their family. Daddy, it’s wrong what’s happening. I can only imagine Your fury over the suffering that’s happening, and the injustice and I pray God that You would do battle on behalf of what’s right and what’s true. You love everyone involved. But I pray for Kim and her husband and their children. I pray that You would rebuke the devourer, that You would silence his lies, that You would expose him as if he’s suddenly naked in front of everyone, that he would be dismayed, turned back, that he would run screaming into the night, into the darkness that he himself has created. May he fall into his own traps and be foiled. And Lord Jesus I just pray that You would vindicate those who are in the right, that You would put a stop and an end to all the plans and purposes of darkness for Kim and her husband and her children and that they would be delivered in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Heavenly Father we just thank You and praise You because You are worthy You are worthy of our highest praise You’re worthy of our best You’re the one who supplies our joy Lord and so we thank You. We thank You for this awesome news that China and her husband Ben are gonna have a baby. Thank You for that. We needed that. We so much needed that. And how appropriate Lord with the Psalm that You picked that we saw the wicked succeeding in the world and everything going to pieces Lord, but You cause us to remember Your faithfulness Lord and You’ve done it through this __ through this beautiful thing that we get to share together as a family Lord. You are good. You’ve always been good even in the beginning of this year You were good. Throughout the year You are good. And thank You Lord for returning our attention to that goodness Lord. So we praise You and we ask that You extend Your healing hands over this child, that You protect the baby, keep the baby safe, watch over the mother, the Father, the grandparents, aunts and uncles Lord. Heavy blessings upon them Lord so they can bring this child to term healthy and strong that we again as a community can continue to give You the praise honor and glory that You deserve Lord. You are a faithful God, You’re a loving God and You’re a true God and we thank You we thank You we thank You. And all praise honor and glory belong to You. This is Byron out in Florida. Brian, China, Jill, Ben, everybody. Congratulations. So excited for you all. God is so very good. Amen.
Hey Daily Audio Bible does Paul from Houston and I wanted to call to pray for James the Mighty Warrior from…called in on the September 29th asking for prayer. He’s been…you said you that you’ve been separated two years and I’m not sure that you…that your wife was trying to move on and just wanted to pray for you with all the people and totally understand what you’re going through and just want to pray for peace Lord. I ask Lord that You would be with James marriage Lord, that You would bless him. God, I ask Lord that You would open the eyes of…of him of his wife. Lord I thank You for being with them. Lord I ask Lord that You would just see the different things that…that…that Your Holy Spirit would just guide their steps Lord, that You would be in the middle of…of what’s happening Lord and I ask Father that Your presence would be made known and I thank You Lord that as James seeks You Lord I thank You Lord that You would just bless him and be with him just give him wisdom help him to see things clearly. Help him to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear and help us all to have the eyes to see and ears to hear to know what direction to take and what steps to go and which way to go right or to go left or to go straight or to backup. There’s…there’s all these things God that we just need we need Your help and we’re just praying for my brother that You would be with him and just bless him and keep him and put Your angels around him. Lord I thank You Lord for just giving him peace in the middle of the storm no matter what’s happening. God, I ask Lord that You would just direct his steps in Jesus’ name. Love you guys. It’s Paul from Houston. Take care.