please bless my plans...

jeremiah 2.13 (ncv), MY people have done two evils. they have turned away from ME, the spring of living water and they’ve dug their own wells, which are broken wells and cannot hold water.

imagine this: you’re walking through the mohave desert for two days with no water and no shade. your throat is parched. you’re dying of thirst. your tongue has grown thick. you think you’re going to die if you don’t get some water.

now as you come up over a sand dune after a couple of days and you see this road side stand with a big neon sign and arrows pointing down that says, “GOD’s free unlimited, everlasting, fulfilling, living water.”

but you don't walk up and ask for a drink? no! you walk right on past it and say to a guy standing there, “can i borrow a shovel?” and you start digging your own well. you’re going to get your own water, your way.

even worse than this, we have the audacity that as you’re digging the well you ask GOD to bless your well. have you ever done that? yes, you have!

you go out and get into some relationship you know is wrong and then you pray, “GOD, please bless this relationship.”

or you go out and buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t like and you get over extended in credit and deeply in dept and then come back and say, “GOD, bless my finances. i have this financial need.”

who got that need there? you tried to turn a desire into a need. GOD didn’t promise to bless your desires. you got overextended with things you didn’t need then prayed, “bless my finances!”

we do this all the time. abraham was promised a baby, a son, who would be the father of a great nation. as abraham got older, nothing happened. he had no kids. his wife sarah was infertile so he thinks, “i’m going to dig my own well. i’ll make my own plan. i’ll take matters into my own hands.”

so he took sarah’s handmaiden, her servant girl and had a child through her. hagar got pregnant and had a baby. they named him ishmael and he holds him up and says, “GOD! here’s the miracle boy!” GOD says, “no! that’s your plan. that’s the well you dug. I’ve got a baby over here named isaac and he’s coming next year.”

how many times do we do this? we get in a hurry. we figure out our own plan to meet our needs and ask GOD to bless that plan.

GOD isn’t going to do it. GOD is not going to bless that relationship that you’ve tried to force on GOD. GOD is not going to bless all those other plans you’ve tried to force on HIM.

just a thought from the front porch…