Sunday, March 29

Jeremiah 31:31-34

God no longer trusts us to keep his written covenant. God says: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

God has become impatient with our tendency to question and to be cynical. God will now become an internal part of us. Not an external contract that can be ignored.

This reminds me of parenting and maturity. As a parent you try to direct, advise, and cajole a child toward the right path. They don’t always follow. They feel confined with your guidance and are searching beyond your control. They may go against you in efforts to prove you wrong. It almost always backfires on them, but they have to try anyway. Sometimes we parents are lucky and everyone survives and comes out on the other side all right, but it can be a fight. Somehow the direction is set and the child can move forward and the parent can be satisfied that all of the good intentions and work has been worth it.

As you mature, if you have paid attention, you get “IT”. There is no questioning, there just is. A sense of peace and calm takes over a part of your life that allows you to move forward. When calamity strikes, and it almost always surely does, you have in your heart the knowledge that God is there. No matter what we say or do, without retribution, we can depend on that.

How liberating to know that God has written the capacity for love and faithfulness into us. We have to search no further than ourselves to find it.