Jeremiah 39:16-18

¹⁶ “Go and tell Ebed-Melek the Cushite, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city—words concerning disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes. ¹⁷ But I will rescue you on that day, declares the Lord; you will not be given into the hands of those you fear. ¹⁸ I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the Lord.’”

The Lord is so awesome, isn't He?!  Here, He is speaking to Jeremiah right before Israel is invaded by the Babylonians.   Through a lot of Isaiah and Jeremiah I enjoy getting to know my God and His personality, but oftentimes I struggle with discovering how some of this scripture applies to my life today.  As I grow in the Spirit I am amazed more and more by how the Father reveals to me exactly how it applies.  I am so thankful for that! :)

To me, these verses directly apply to anything we have in our lives that the Lord has put on our hearts as not being the best thing for us, or things that will prevent us from growing closer to Him.  These may be people, things, activities, whatever.  If He has asked us to do something to follow Him (just as He asked Israel repeatedly), we really should not disregard those requests.  If He has made it clear to us in any way that something we are following is not part of His will for us, He will indeed bring disaster to it instead of prosperity...and that's exactly what He did with Israel.

However, if we follow Him and make decisions to let go of the things that He asks us to, we will prosper.  It's actually the only true way to prosper.  Jeremiah chose to follow the Lord, and for that he was rescued.  He trusted in the Lord, so he was saved.  Listening to, hearing and following God's voice will lead us to where we need to be.  I know a lot of times we can find change to be quite scary.  We can get so caught up in what we have the ability to see and touch, that we forget to walk by faith instead of by sight.  I know it's a crazy concept, but regardless of what you see(your world could be crumbling around you), if you have the faith that God will lead you to prosperity, don't waste another second attempting to rebuild the crumbling out of your own ability if you feel the Lord is leading you in a completely different direction. He is the only one who has the ability to truly save us, and the only way he's going to do that is if we truly trust Him enough to follow in absolute faith.