What Does The Lord Say?

I don’t always go looking.
Sometimes the verse just comes to me.

No, I’m not special.  I have no more “link to Jesus” than you do.
But I come with ears to hear every day.

And so on a Tuesday morning I wake up to discover, once again, for the reason I’m alive!
And I find it only.. ONLY in His Word.

I come to my quiet time on the verge of tears.

And I don’t know why exactly.

But it’s compelling.  And overwhelming.

I feel it in my soul like a heaviness I can’t escape.
A burden.

And I’m reminded when I come to His Word.
And I read that He, too, wept for Jerusalem.
His heart, too, broke because of complacency.
And evil all around.

I’d speak to countless friends over the course of several weeks, many who would echo the same feelings of discontent, and unsettling, and deep unrest.
And we all would share similar experiences of a wrestling we can’t quite define.

And so I come to the Word.
The only place I know to go.

And I see it.
It almost leaps off the page.
Haggai 2:3-5.
“Does anyone remember this house - this temple - in it’s former splendor?  How in comparison does it look to you now?  It must seem like nothing at all.  But now the Lord says, ‘Be strong all you people still left in the land.  And now get to work, for I am with you.  My Spirit remains among you just as I promised when you came out of Egypt.  So do not be afraid.’”

Yep.
Just like our God.
JUST LIKE our God.
He sends just what is needed.

And embedded within the text is the only thing I need to know.
“But now the Lord says.”

It’s the only question I have to ask.

What is He saying?
Not what are they saying.
Not what is the media saying.
Not what is government saying.
Not what is the enemy saying.
What is HE saying.

And here it’s clear:
Look with a heavenly perspective.
Be strong.
Get to work.
Don’t be afraid.

Yes, God.
I’m so grateful that the only question that implores me to lean in to listen for the answer to is this -“ What does the Lord say?”