Jeremiah 4:19-6:15, Colossians 1:18-2:7, Psalms 77:1-20, Proverbs 24:23-25
Today is the 5th day of October, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today just like it is wonderful to be here with you every day. We’re fortunate. We’re fortunate to have the Global Campfire. We’re fortunate to have this place to come to each and every day. And, so, I’m grateful. And let’s dive in. We are in the book of Jeremiah, kinda just getting moved into that. We are also in the book of…the book, but the letter to the Colossians, which we just began yesterday. So, we’re just getting into that so it’s kind of new territory for us. We’re reading from the Common English Bible this week. Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 19 through 6 verse 15 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, there are days when we come to our reading from the Psalms that what we read is so raw, so honest, and we find that as a bit of a trademark in the Psalms. And we find that actually in music, right? We can find certainly pretentious music, sometimes that heart cry, or that person singing about heartbreak or some other thing that has happened and it just comes through because of the music, the feeling the emotion of the words is exponentially amped up, more on display. And, so, when we find music, a song, a lyric from the Psalms in the Bible saying what we feel, then we identify with it. And we may be…we may take a step back and go, “why is that in the Bible? The Bible’s supposed to be full of encouragement, all positivity.” But actually, the Bible is something that’s there to reach our hearts and to lead us to God. And honesty is a place to start. And, so, we see that in the 77th psalm today that Asaph wrote. And he cries out in this Psalm with like…like a barrage of questions…maybe not a barrage…six questions in particular, but one after the other after the other. And if we pay attention to those questions, we find…we find ourselves in different seasons in our…in our lives having asked the same things. So, Asaph asks, “will my Lord reject me forever. Will He never be pleased again? Has His faithful love come to a complete end? Is His promise over for future generations? Has God forgotten how to be gracious? Has He angrily stopped up His compassion?” Those are some intensely honest questions. And maybe we haven’t used these exact words, but we’ve had these sentiments, we’ve had these thoughts, they’ve been in our hearts. Many of them we’ve spoken aloud and typically this is happening when we are not happy about something, right, when we have a crisis to deal with or we have to endure something or we’re suffering in some way. We usually don’t ask where has His…His compassion gone if everything is awesome and were having a great day. It’s usually when we’re in a season of challenge that these kinds of things begin to bubble up out of our heart. And it’s not like they weren’t there. They just emerge. They reveal themselves and all the sudden we check in with our own hearts and see that we’re not doing all that great. And at this point in the Psalm Asaph isn’t doing that great. So, he asks these six questions that we just asked or read ourselves. His response after those six questions is, “it’s my misfortune I thought that the strong hand of the most-high is different now.” That is so honest. That…that…that rings true. This is how he is actually experiencing life at the moment. And it…it’s so ancient. These words are thousands of years old and so relevant. And, so, we can see again, permission to be honest, it’s just what do we do once we reach that place…point…point that we stuffed things down inside enough till they kind of emerge, whether they blow up or they just seep out. What’s going on in our heart is going to seep out into our lives. So, what we do with it. Well…the first thing is to be honest about it. We’re seeing this modeled in the Bible, to be honest about it, but there are still choices to be made, because we can get really honest about how were feeling and we can cry tears and weep and plead and yell and spin around in circles and jump up and down and do whatever we need to do to release some of the energy, but we can get stuck there as if nothing will ever change and we can…we can turn toward bitterness and that will only make it worse. That will only lead us into further depths. It's…it’s as if Asaph caught himself and then gives another path. And, so, Asaph says, “I will remember the Lord’s deeds. Yes, I will remember your wondrous acts from times long past. I will meditate on all your works. I will ponder your deeds. God, your way is holiness. Who is as great a God as you, God? You are the God who works wonders. You have demonstrated your strength among all peoples.” So I don’t know that Asaph was a journal-er, but what he’s saying is he will remember what God has done and let that inform how he’s feeling now. And, so, often when we have kind of journaled our way through a year or through the Bible we’ll always have that so that when we can’t remember we have an epistle to ourselves, a letter to ourselves, essentially, that reminds us so that we might remember God’s faithfulness toward us, that yes, how we feel, what we’re enduring, what we’re facing, that’s real, it’s formidable, maybe it’s terrifying, maybe scary, maybe it brings anxiety. It’s life. It can be anything. The problem isn’t being honest about it, right, so that we fake, like it’s not happening, which is so really prevalent in our faith culture. It's…it’s not the honesty that’s an issue. It’s what we do with it. If we use our honesty to dig a pit that we might wallow in it, we can certainly do that and we’ll stay in the pit, we’ll be in the pit until we get out of the pit. What Asaph is modeling is recognizing through honesty that you are at a precipice in making a choice to remember, we’ve been this way before, suffered things before, endured things before, and scared before. God is faithful, and I will remember that. And, so, let’s take that into our day. I mean, that right there, I know…I know lots of you are going through stuff and need that today. And, so, thank God, I totally understand. And, so, let’s carry it today, that honesty is necessary and important, but it’s not the end. It’s the beginning. Let’s be honest, and then let’s remember that God is and has always been faithful.
Prayer:
Father, and we acknowledge that. You are always faithful. We have no examples of a time where You double-crossed anybody. You have always been true. You’ve always according to the Scriptures had a desire to be in fellowship to draw us to Yourself. We see this on every page of the Bible, Your relentless unwillingness to surrender us and Your continual willingness to pursue our hearts over the course of thousands of years and that hasn’t changed. You are faithful and we remember. And come Holy Spirit and bring to mind throughout the course of this day all kinds of time maybe we’ve forgotten that You’ve been faithful and have rescued us. This encourages us. This gives us confidence. This develops our faith. And, so come, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Commentary:
dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. And as I say often you can find out what’s going on around here using the Daily Audio Bible app as well by pushing the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner.
And actually, let’s take a second to talk about that because a number of you, thousands of you have had some problems over the last several days, especially…specifically accessing the Daily Audio Bible through the app or through web. And I could probably sit here and talk for several hours…and I mean…probably hours just about what it’s like in the technology world and developing etc. etc. and the way in which it is a nonstop, constant…constant move forward. Just like we do at the Daily Audio Bible, a step forward together every day. But some of the stuff that’s happened in the last couple of days that have been frustrating have been frustrating to us too because it’s been beyond our control. Essentially, there…not to get too far in the weeds, but there’s a way that security is done on the Internet and encrypting things so that data can’t be intercepted or passed along, and we don’t have any of that kind of data at the Daily Audio Bible but we follow those protocols. And a major Internet security certificate issuer let their own certificate expire, which ended up affecting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, including stores that, you know, couldn’t do transactions, not just Internet stores, but store stores and the Daily Audio Bible was affected as well. So, we’ve done what we do whenever an issue like this arises or when we see something more widespread. We get together and start dissecting the problem and identifying and figuring out the solution. Sometimes a problem requires a long-term solution. And, so, we have to look long term and short term, but this is the nature of it. And, so, we have been working pretty feverishly to not be relying on those specific certificates or rather, getting them in our own control. And that will make us responsible for them, but it’ll also give us control over them so that if they expire it’s our fault. And, so, that is what we are in the process of doing and this should all straighten itself out. This particular issue, almost across the board has affected people who are android users who have an android type device and we were in contact and we were given the same information everybody else is being given, to be sure to advise anyone using an android device to make sure that their operating system is the most current because apparently there are some fixes for issues like this in the most current iteration of…of android. So, I’m passing that information along. And I’ll just say like even yesterday, places that are…places that have billions of users, like places way, way, way beyond the Daily Audio Bible like Facebook or Instagram, they were out yesterday or messenger our WhatsApp. They were out yesterday. Totally different issues, but issues. And they have an army of developers. So, just know, it can get crazy out there. And we are, in a way, aloof. Every…well…there’s a team that works on this every day at Daily Audio Bible. And also know that we have developed two different players. One is the Daily Audio Bible app, of course, but we also have an online player that you can access from the Daily Audio Bible website, at dailyaudiobible.com. We’ve built those two things separately so that we have at least inside of our community here a little bit of redundancy. So, know that if you are ever having an issue with the app just got to player.dailyaudiobible.com and you’ll have a player that is connected to the system and works the same as the app. And a widespread issue like the one we experienced over the weekend and into yesterday, that kinda stuff affects everything. It was affecting hundreds of thousands of people but we work really, really diligently to serve the community here and we always will. And we’re working on some…some longer-term projects that will invariably be incorporated over the next year to stabilize and help us serve even better. And, so, if you experience difficulties, pray for us. Pray for us. It’s so much more effective than hate mail. Pray for us as we pray for you every day. We’re in this together. Also know that we’re experiencing an uptick right now. And, so, I live in the central time zone here in the rolling hills of Tennessee. So, like 5AM to 11AM is when we’re geetin’ hammered. That’s when so many people are accessing the system. Beautiful. Love it. We’re increasing resources in that direction. But if you’re experience sluggishness, just wait. It’s that so many people are trying to access the same content that you are. So, be patient for like even a minute, which is…I know that’s pretty hard to do on the internet. We expect super high-speed super quick response. Boom boom boom I push the button and the thing happens. But sometimes when you have…when you push the button you are sending a message out that says to the server, I’m requesting this bit of information then the server computes and collects the information that you want and sends it back. And when a lot of people are asking for the same things at the same times then it cues up. So, just be patient for just a minute. Typically, everything can…can sort itself out. But anyway, I don’t want to get into the weeds here. Just pray for us as we pray for you as we continue to take the next step forward together because it is the deepest passion to bring the spoken word fresh every single day and brought to you excellently. When that has to happen seven days a week without fail invariably, sooner or later there are challenges. The team that works on all of this technology are also a part of who we are and listen to the Daily Audio Bible every day as well. So, pray for us. We’re in this together.
And, of course, as always if you have a prayer request or you have an encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial…you see the redundancy here…you can dial 877-942-4253.
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 my name is Z and I’d like to thank everyone in the DAB community for supporting each other. This is a beautiful beautiful forum. And the purpose of my call is to ask for prayer for myself as I undergo some challenges and uneasiness at work at present. I’m feeling unfulfilled, unappreciated and have been in my position for four years. It's…it pays the bills and I have a wonderful team of people under me, but my issue is leadership. I feel that it could be better and it’s frustrating at present to the point where I feel like I…I want to leave. I’m just hoping to find wisdom to make the right decision. I hope to…to get a sign from God as to what I should do in this situation. I can’t continue to be frustrated day in and day out in that environment in which I spend most of my…my day. So, I pray brothers and sisters, I ask for your prayer that I find the wisdom to make the right decision and get through this. Thank you.
Daily Audio Bible this…this prayer is for Alicia from Colorado who used to live in Montana. Alicia is blind and she just is recovering from COVID and she doesn’t have her sense of taste or smell back and she’s going through lots of fear and unsteadiness and…and lots of crying in depression and so understandable especially if you’re blind and…and…and, you know, and possibly alone. Father we lift up Alicia to you right now in the name of Jesus. We pray that you give her a hope and a faith that surpasses all this fear because opposite of fear…opposite of faith is fear. And Alicia the scripture says hope deferred makeith the heart sick but long and fulfilled is the tree of life. We pray that you will have this hope that you will get your…your taste back and the smell of food back so that you can eat and get your body strong again. Alicia, I…I know from just being here in Florida and the people that I know they still it takes months sometimes it takes up to 6 to 12 months to get…to get your taste and smell back. But we know God honor’s prayer and God is healing you and we claim that right now in the name of Jesus, that you will get it back quickly. So, we claim that right now. DABbers please agree with me in Jesus’ name for Alicia and we lift her up to you in Jesus’ name we pray that you give her the peace that’s surpasses all understanding and…and a vast amount of faith and we come against depression and we pray that you fill her up with your joy and your peace in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hi this is Just as I am Sam in Northern California my first-time calling in. I started listening to Daily Audio Bible in 2019 and I’m totally hooked. I love how Brian just can make sense out of the Bible and put it in such understandable terms. So, thank you so much for that. And I would like to ask for prayer for myself. I’m having an MRI tomorrow. That’s on Friday. And I have chronic pain in my spine and back and I’m just praying that Jesus will light it up and…and show the doctors what’s going on. I’ve struggled with this pain for over 15 years, and we would like to get help and answers. So, I’d appreciate your prayers. And I’m praying for all of you as well. And it’s been a wonderful group and help in times of loneliness and I love you all. Thank you. God bless you.
Hello this is Ruth __. I’m calling to thank you Brian, Jill, China for devoting your life to this __. I have in my heart there was a call that came in last week with a mother who was talking about her children. She had many. I think she might have mentioned she had nine children. And they were molested by their father and the father has been put in jail. And I lift the children up to you Lord and their mother. I just…my heart breaks just knowing that they’ve gone through such horrible situation. I know that You can rectify this. I know that she can bring them back and make them whole, so they don’t spend their lives worrying about this all the time. Lord and I also I want to ask for prayer for my family. I have a daughter who’s stepped away from me for reasons I never understand, and I need to have her back again. I also have a grandson who is not doing well, and he has stepped away from the family. I lift them all up to You Lord. You can…You can heal this family and bring them back. I thank you. Thank you all I love each one of you and I try to remember to pray for you each and every day. Thank you.
Hey this is Jerry calling from Duluth Minnesota. So appreciated the words this morning of Brian Friday October the first…actually Saturday October the second. It’s a day 890 of my renewed journey in the Daily Audio Bible. Some of you have been here many years know me as Jerry the Paper Carrier from Duluth MN. Back in April 26th of 2019 I renewed my commitment to the Daily Audio Bible. Now it’s been 890 days without a miss getting up early in the morning starting my day with the Daily Audio Bible. Appreciate your prayers through the years and wanted to particularly today pray for Brian…Byron sorry in Florida. You’ve been such a blessing to me over the many years. Pray for your wife who’s dealing with so many health issues and have for so many years. And Charlie from Houston who’s been wife has been dealing with lupus and now has found out that there is difficulty with the heart and lungs. And Byron thank you so much to for sharing that…that little story as far as the bus stop is concerned and for taking time even through really difficult times to look at the little things and remember what God has done for us. Also thank you Brian again for reminding us as far as the journal. I remember when you told the story of the black wing pen…pencil’s when your mom was had…was passing away. I’ve journaled now I’ve for many…many many months and years since…
Good morning, everybody I’m Ms. Jomiah God is Coming and I want to pray for Byron from Florida. I wanted to pray for his wife and that his wife becomes healthy, and that God is always helping you and He’ll be on your side no matter what. So, thank you Byron for sharing your story because that means a lot to people and thank you so much. So, as we pray in Jesus’ name Amen.