God’s surprising comfort

Yesterday I talked with a friend who, like me, prays daily for her children who are not walking with the Lord. She told me how diligently she taught them of Jesus, yet to no avail.

This morning I thought about God, the perfect Father who provided all their needs and put Adam and Eve in perfect surroundings. If anyone had done it all right, God did, yet these two ‘children’ rebelled against Him and walked away from all He gave them.

My friend was an encouragement to me, yet my heart still feels heavy as I plead with God to work in the hearts of those I love. I cannot see that He is doing anything, yet I know He can and I know that, as difficult as it is, I’m not supposed to stop praying.

All week I’d been asking God to give me opportunity to say something to one family member, and to give me the right words. The opportunity came yesterday, but the conversation didn’t seem too positive. I wanted to share the goodness of God but the words that came out were not what I expected. Instead of hope and an urging to turn to Him, I drew a line in the sand and gave a challenge. If you will not trust the One who created you, and can’t trust the other people He created, then all you have left is you. So quit feeling sorry for yourself and bite the bullet. Something like that.

This morning with a heavy heart I was praying again for my family before I opened my Bible. My devotional reading sent me to Jeremiah 31 and God stopped me at verses 15-18.

Thus says the Lord: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”
Thus says the Lord: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the Lord, that your children shall come back to their own border. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself: ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, like an untrained bull; restore me, and I will return, for You are the Lord my God.’”

The context is the rebellion of Israel against God and these verse are about the distress of the mothers who lost their children when Babylon invaded the land and took them captive. God tells them that He hears their cries and to refrain from weeping, for He will bring them back. His people are being chastened, but God will restore them.

These verses are not mothers in this century who see their children captive to sin and in the clutches of our spiritual enemy. However, they are about a God who knows the sorrow of such mothers. He hears our cries and knows that nothing will comfort us but a full restoration of our families to the kingdom of God.

It is also about a God who knows what to do and has the power to do it. He might be chastening us for our failures as mothers, or our failure to trust Him, or our failure to be patient with Him, or what He is doing might not have anything to do with our failures — remember, He is a perfect parent yet Adam and Eve still went over to the other side.

It is also about surprise and comfort. Many times I’ve been in distress about family, more so than usual, and God takes me to verses like this, verses that promise what He will do with the children of those who believe in Him.

There is hope, despite what my eyes see and my ears hear. God is able to turn even the most rebellious child from their sin into the glorious liberty of being His children and members of His family. He may be leading them in darkness now, but He is fully able to bring them into light.

I will keep praying.