Thursday
Hey God, wasn’t Israel Your Chosen People? What gives? Why are they being treated like this?
Israel has been torn from their homes, they have been rounded up and taken into captivity, to live in a foreign land. They loss so much, families, lives, possessions. Like any nation that has been defeated, they are trying to make sense of this suffering in their life, the pain, the uncertainty of their future, where is God? Why are they being punished? They were told, they were warned, the prophets had begged them to listen and instead they choose to ignore them, to continue to party and dance and follow foreign gods, while the world around them was drifting farther and farther from the One True God.
How important it is for us to see and read and learn of this. We see that God is a just God. He says what He means and means what He says. We know that God is a gracious and loving God, slow to anger and abounding in love, but we also must know that God is a Just God and justice needs to be administered. It does us good to remember this and be willing to repent and ask for forgiveness. As we follow along on this trail of tears for the Israelites, we can also remember that God will be with them (and us) wherever we go.
Shalom
Pastor Kathy