To Encourage You

Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

This morning, I was reading a sermon by C.H. Spurgeon on the verse above and one of his statements especially caught my eye.  He said, “so strange is the infatuation of man . . . which makes him need a command to be merciful to his own soul.”  In other words, the very things that are the best for us we must be commanded to do because we would be so negligent about them otherwise.   And among those things is this matter of prayer. 

God has commanded us to call to Him.  Not only that but He also promises us that He will answer and that His answers will go beyond anything we might imagine.  He will tell us “great and hidden things that (we) have not known.”  He’s told us that there are things that He wants to tell us that are very great, but unless we go to Him, they will remain hidden from us.  We must want to know what He has for us. He won’t force them down our throats.

Yet, in His providence, He might bring things into our lives that will incline us to seek Him, things without which we might not.  There are things He has for us, but we must first realize that “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). It’s interesting to note that the words from Jeremiah 33 came to Jeremiah while he was in prison.  Even there, God would have Jeremiah know that He had wonderful things to tell Him.  He wasn’t abandoned. He wasn’t alone.  As he languished in such difficult physical circumstances, God had things He wanted to make known to Him – things that Jeremiah’s circumstances would incline him to hear.  In Jeremiah’s difficulties, God was telling him to call to Him. 

And so, we should ask ourselves, “Am I calling to Him right now?”  If I am facing difficult situations in life, problems within my family, financial difficulties, problems with my health, am I obeying the Lord’s command to call to Him?  Do I realize that there are wonderful things that God desires to teach me even now – and more so, especially now? Am I reading and searching His Word and praying that God would open my eyes to see the wonderful things He has for me there (Psalm 119:18)?  Whatever our situation, whatever our need, the Lord is telling us plainly, “Call to me and I will answer you and I will tell you great and wonderful things that you have not known.”  He wants to give us a new perspective. He wants to open our eyes.  But, so often, “(we) do not have, because (we) do not ask” (James 4:2), and so God commands us to ask, and thereby shows mercy to our soul.