{"id":71,"date":"2014-04-06T02:39:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T02:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2014-04-08T05:12:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T05:12:29","slug":"when-things-fall-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/when-things-fall-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"When things fall apart\u2026."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Abstract<\/a> <\/p>\n

We all go through challenges in life. Of course, we often think that our circumstances are most difficult. <\/p>\n

The prophet Jeremiah was going through a tougher situation. His city was invaded. He was homeless, persecuted and probably feeling lonely and hungry most of the time. What he wrote in the book of lamentations is good for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thought of my pain and my homelessness is bitter poison. I think of it constantly, and my spirit is depressed. Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord\u2019s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, so in him I put my hope.\u201d (Lamentations 3:19-26 TEV)<\/p>\n

When our world is falling apart, it\u2019s so easy to focus on the pain, the problems, the pressure and the difficulties. It\u2019s the natural response. But the biblical response is to turn our focus to God\u2019s love.
\n
\nI know there are times when we feel angry against God. I speak for myself. Honestly. However, Jeremiah reminds us that even though we\u2019re mad at God, we need to remind ourselves how much God loves us. Focus on his unconditional love. Remember that we can\u2019t make God stop loving us. You and I can complain. We may frown at him or even scream, but he still loves us forever.<\/p>\n

We can see this biblical approach in Jeremiah\u2019s life in Lamentations 3:19-26. Jeremiah starts out focused on his pain: \u201cThe thought of my pain and my homelessness is bitter poison. I think of it constantly, and my spirit is depressed.\u201d Jeremiah was consumed by the devastation around him; it consumed his thoughts and made him bitter and depressed.<\/p>\n

If we want to change our lives, we have to change our thoughts. So that\u2019s what Jeremiah does. We see the mental switch in the next verse: \u201cYet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord\u2019s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, so in him I put my hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know God is all we need until God is all we\u2019ve got.<\/strong> But that\u2019s all we need, because God will take care of us.<\/p>\n

We make dumb mistakes when we start doubting God\u2019s love. We start to think, \u201cI know better than God, and I\u2019m going to start choosing my way to do things rather than following God\u2019s way of doing things.\u201d Or we think God is a cosmic killjoy who looks for ways to make our lives miserable.<\/p>\n

We need to change our thinking. We need to remember, \u201cThe Lord is merciful and will not reject us forever. He may bring us sorrow, but his love for us is sure and strong. He takes no pleasure in causing us grief and pain\u201d (Lamentations 3:31-33 TEV).<\/p>\n

God loves you. He is not the strict parent that you couldn\u2019t please. He is not the imperfect parent with weaknesses and faults who messed up. He is God \u2014 the eternal, all-knowing, infallible God who created you to love you and will never leave you.<\/p>\n

So when you feel like you\u2019ve lost everything, stop focusing on what\u2019s lost and start focusing on what\u2019s left: God and his love for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all go through challenges in life. Of course, we often think that our circumstances are most difficult. The prophet Jeremiah was going through a tougher situation. His city was invaded. He was homeless, persecuted and probably feeling lonely and hungry most of the time. What he wrote in the book of lamentations is good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bermiedizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}