Woven

Goodness. We’ve covered major ground this week. The prophets along with the historical books that take place during the time of exile fill most of the Old Testament space. Today, we’ve read about the last wave of prophets, the men prophesying about God’s healing after disobedience and consequence for Israel.

Isn’t God gracious! His people were very warned about choosing their own path and worshiping their own gods. Those warnings began in Exodus. We were here for them. For eight weeks, you and I have been reading about God’s plan for His people. He wanted them to love Him, to trust Him, to follow Him only, and to be a picture of His love for others here on Earth. If they chose not to do that, destruction would be inevitable.

Sadly, they chose destruction. Throughout the first three waves of the exile, we’ve read about the tragedy of their consequences. Simply put, they chose to make life a whole lot harder than it had to be. Moms, isn’t that the most difficult thing about parenting older children? We want life to be easier for them than their choices often allow. (I could turn this day’s writing into weeks of writing on this topic, so I will absolutely stop with that line of thinking now.) It must have broken God’s heart to watch His children suffer slavery again.

Today, though, we’ve read about the aftermath of their destruction. God did make a way for them to return to their land and rebuild their temple. It would look different than before. But, they made it out.

I’m going to stop with my writing here today. I would love for you to look back through these last few books and choose one to read and study on your own,

• Ezra or Nehemiah if you want to study the facts about Israel’s return home.

• Haggai or Zechariah if you want to see what the prophets said to Israel as she was rebuilding home.

• Joel if reading prophesy about the goodness that can come from (and because of) exile. I believe there are prophetic words in Joel that apply to us today. God is always raising up sons and daughters to prophesy about Him when the majority of the world appears to have forgotten Him.

• Esther if you need to be encouraged by God choosing an unlikely candidate to courageously fight to save her people from death – honestly, what could have been a mass Jewish slaughter. I love the story of Esther so much, because it offers the ultimate plot twist.

• Malachi if you want to read the last of our books before we close the Old Testament and move on.

I’m praying for you, ladies. I invite you to pray for yourself. Quietly and patiently, ask God to show you where He would like for you to camp in Scripture today. I believe He will show you. I know He will tailor a lesson only for you. He’s so precious like that. Enjoy your time alone with Him.

Don't forget to journal any scripture that is meaningful to you along with your thoughts about it. You may want to write out your own prayers to God.

God, this has been such a journey. I just can’t thank you enough for giving us the books of the Old Testament. Through them, we’ve been able to see how normal and fallible Your people were. It’s very obvious that You don’t need perfection in Your people. We’ve also been able to see that Your love is unbreakable. They simply couldn’t do anything to turn You away for good, so we know that we can’t either. That truth should change our hearts. It should cause us to completely rest in Your plan for us. Like Israel, we suffer forgetfulness. I pray that our time in the Old Testament has created new paths of thinking in our brains. I pray that we’ve learned to trust You a little more and that our times of forgetfulness are quickly righted with memories of Your goodness and grace.