"Yahweh is good to those who trust in him, to the soul that searches for him."

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your deeds. And I will allow you to live in this place. Do not trust deceitful words, chanting: This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Instead, if you act justly toward one another, if you no longer oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow and no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods, bringing harm on yourselves, I will allow you to live in this place, the land I have to your ancestors long ago and forever. But look, you keep trusting in deceitful words that cannot help....” (Jeremiah 7:2-8)

What was happening to the people is that they were moving towards the dictates of their own heart rather than knowing the Lord. They believed that being a part of the temple of the Lord was what saved them. They had become proud and self sufficient and they lacked any real knowledge or love for the Lord. They forgot the first commandment and were living in emptiness without realizing it.

The purpose of Jeremiah's prophesy was to warn the people that they had fallen away from the Lord and could not rely on 'the temple' for their salvation. They were relying on form and external religion but they were not genuinely seeking to know God.

Because of the temple, they expected peace and safety. They had an expectation of God providing them this security and peace because they had His favor. Their hearts became so hardened in their own expectations and ways that they would not listen to Jeremiah warning them to repent.

God in His goodness will not leave us in a place of trusting something other than Him. And it is for our own benefit that we do not trust in something outside of Him. In this place of false trust, we do not bear fruit but our relationship with God dries up. In His jealous love and desire for our best, He will free us from what we trust in.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 says, “The man who trusts in mankind, who makes human flesh his strength and turns his heart from the Lord is cursed. He will be like a juniper in the Arabah; he cannot see when good comes but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land where no one lives. The man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord is blessed. He will be like a tree planted by water that sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn't fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.”

It is not that we set out to trust in things outside of Him. We most often do not know that we have put our trust in something else. When we are prompted to repent, we may ignore it. Over time, our conscious can become seared to it even being wrong.

Jeremiah 17:9-20, he proclaims to the people, “the heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable – who can understand it? I, Yahweh, examine the mind, I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve.”

In this place of stubbornness and hardheartedness, the lives of the religious people in Judah failed to bear any fruit. They were not caring for the poor and needy. Their lives lacked giving comfort to those who needed it. This should have been a clue to them they were following false religion and in idolatry and needed to repent (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

When we don't see it or repent, by allowing us to feel pain, it will often break us free from trusting in something other than God. In the case of Judah, they had such an expectation of peace and safety and security in trusting in the temple, they just couldn't see it. They would not have to experience exile if they could have repented and turned. Eventually as they were exiled, the temple was torn down and destroyed before their very eyes.

They had to feel devastated. What they felt was important and put their energy into was destroyed. Their thoughts and expectations of how things were supposed to be and what was supposed to happen was blown away. They had trusted in this temple and now it was rubble before them and they were to start over in a new land where they could not have this temple or rebuild it. When they were exiled, they deeply mourned their loss.

Psalm 137 proclaims,

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
    when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
    we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the Lord
    while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
    may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
    my highest joy.
Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
    on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
    “tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
    happy is the one who repays you
    according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
    and dashes them against the rocks.”

When they came back after their years of exile and fully repenting of their trust in the temple and their religious privileges, even when it was rebuilt, the temple would never be the same again. People who remembered the old temple wept when the foundations were laid of the new one because it was so much smaller.

We have to hold to things in this world loosely – even the works of the kingdom. They are all for God's glory and to God. They are not about us and we are not to put our hopes or desires in them but only in God Himself.

Ezekiel was one who was able to let go of what was and sought God right where he was placed. He was exiled to Babylon along with everyone else. He proclaims in Ezekiel 1:1, “In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.”

Ezekiel had capacity to embrace difficulties and allow them to change his heart, drawing him closer to God rather than becoming bitter. He didn't seem to have expectations around how things should be and if would have comfortable circumstances. He did not become offended by difficulties.

A friend of mine who has went through a terrible difficulty in her life recently told me that she has never had such growth. She genuinely has to exercise her faith in ways that she never had to before. She has a daily dependance upon God to get through the day.

She is having to learn to live day by day in the midst of the pain. And noted that how she deals with the situation has a tremendous difference on how she is doing. When she ponders her loss and sits in it or strives to fill it somehow, she wallows in her pain. But when she looks to God and trusts His goodness, she finds surrender and hope.

Jeremiah found the same struggle. He proclaims in Lamentation 3:17-20,

“Brooding on my anguish and affliction is gall and wormwood.

My Spirit ponders it continually and sinks within me.

This is what I shall tell my heart ans so recover hope:

the favours of Yahweh are not all past, his kindnesses are not exhausted;

every morning they are renewed; great is his faithfulness.

'My portion is Yahweh' says my soul 'and so I will hope in him.'

Yahweh is good to those who trust in him, to the soul that searches for him.

It is good to wait in silence for Yahweh to save.

It is good for a man to bear the yoke from youth onwards,

to sit in solitude and silence when the Lord fastens it on him,

to put his lips to the dust -perhaps there still is hope-

to offer his cheek to the striker, to be overwhelmed with insults.”

Persecution or wounding by someone (friend or enemy) is one type of suffering we will experience. In “offering one's cheek to the striker”, Jeremiah knows not to become offended, resist, and/or retaliate against one's enemies.

Jeremiah did not return insult for insult or fight against the persecution. Instead he looked to God and trusted Him. When needed and prompted, he confronted it in love and truth (Jeremiah 20:3-4). In the same way we need to allow our difficulties it to transform us rather than fighting against it.

1 Thessalonians 5:15 says, “See that none of you repays another with evil for evil, but always aim to show kindness and seek to do good to one another and to everybody.

A wise friend of mine recently sent me a note that said, “I sometimes think that the troubles we have and the disappointments are like the grooves He makes with His finger before He fills them with His goodness.”

As we look to God in our pain, disappointment, and persecution rather than fight against it, he will comfort us. As he does, we will begin to realize that He is big enough even for our worst difficulties. The fruit of being comforted is that we have an overflow of comfort for others around us.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Lord, so grateful how you can take the worst difficulties and bring us such overflowing comfort. Thank you for always being there for us and with us through every trial and tribulation. Help us not to run from our difficulties but move closer and find our refuge in You. In You we are never dissapointed.