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     Tonight I was planning on going to bed early. I have to get up for work at 5 a.m. and I really wanted to get a good amount of sleep. But my spirit was restless. I had felt the Holy Spirit calling to me all evening, urging me to get into the Word, something I hadn't been really getting into on my own the last few days. So I grabbed my Bible, my journal, and devotional books and dug in. I started off reading this small devotional my Pastor gave to use for the past 40 days. It's called the "40 day Faith-Lift". I read through it. It was a great little blurb, but I just didn't feel the connection that I knew the Holy Spirit was leading me into. I got up to turn my fan on, (my room was hot!) and when I got back to my bed, my Bible had flipped to a different page then where I had left it. Where it had opened was a book mark. It was the book mark my pastor's wife had given us with a daily Bible reading list for the month of October. She gives these out each month and each day has about 3-4 chapters in various books of the Bible that we are to read each day. I have a confession- this month I hadn't read from it once. And the Holy Spirit nudged me again. Read todays. That was what I heard. And so I looked at today's assignment. It was Jeremiah 13-16. Jeremiah is one of my favorite prophets. I began reading.
     Starting right off in Jeremiah chapter 13, Jeremiah tells of a time when God spoke to him. God told him to go out and buy a linen belt and wrap it around his waist. Then God had Jeremiah go to Perath and hide the belt there in a crevice among the rocks. Several days later, God sent Jeremiah back to Perath to dig up the linen belt. When Jeremiah did so, he found it to be ruined and completely useless. We'll pick up here at verse 8. 

       "Then the word of the Lord came to me. This is what the Lord says: 'In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubborness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt-completely useless." Jeremiah 13:8-10 
 
    Wow. Completely useless? I know for sure I do not want to be considered completely useless to God. This passage just really spoke to me. It stood out as I read it. Two things stood out to me right away.
  1. ""who follow the stubborness of their own hearts" (Verse10) God began to reveal my own stubborn heart to me. Recently, I have just been doing whatever I've wanted to do with my spare time. Unfortunately, a lot of that has just been watching episodes of t.v. shows on netflix. I've been tired lately and have just wanted to sit back, relax, and watch something. It does not require thinking to watch a tv show. It's something that I can "shut off my mind" so to speak and just enjoy the entertainment. Watching tv or movies is not bad. However, when God is calling you into deeper time with Him and you're sitting on your butt watching t.v., then it can become an issue. There are things I know He is calling me to do right now with that free time, yet I chalked it up to being "too tired" to do anything and out of my own stubborn heart I was neglecting my purpose. I was following my stubborn heart instead of doing what God was asking me to do each day. I had become lazy even in my devotionals, and that it just not good. 
  2. "go after other gods to serve and worship them" (Verse10) The next thing God revealed to me was that I had unknowingly created other gods in my heart and worshiped them without a second thought. Again, I will turn to my recent addiction with t.v. shows. Now I will repeat: Watching t.v. shows is not a bad thing, it is not a sin and I am in no way saying that it is. However, when you get so caught up in it that it's all you do when you are home, you think about the shows a lot, and even rush through your 'quiet time' with God just so that you can watch another episode (sad to say, but yes I have done this), then it does become a problem. Without even knowing it, I had created this idol in my life. T.v. shows had become my idol and I worshiped it in my heart in a sort of way. When it replaced my time with God, I knew I was in trouble.You see, I may even have been aware of this replacement slowly, but again my stubborn heart refused to see it for what it truly was. Until God revealed it to me. And how it hurt to have Him reveal it to me. It hurt to think that I would do such a thing to Him, Someone who loves me more than anyone on earth ever possibly could. This was a wake up call and an eye opener that was long overdo.

As the realization of these things continued to wash over my in waves of disbelief, I still felt the Holy Spirit nudging me on. Dig deeper was what I heard. And so I did. I have a study Bible. I started to break it down even further by reading the notes that go along with the verses underneath the passage. And one note stood out to me. It was about verse 11. The note said "But they have not listened. And therefore the promise of Deuteronomy 26:19 can no longer be fulfilled." What was this promise that God had made? Go with me to Deuteronomy. 

"He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame, and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised." Deuteronomy 26:19
What a promise! And yet, in Jeremiah it has been found that God could not fulfill the promise because of their stubborn hearts! They did not obey God, they worshiped other gods. And then God began to speak what He was teaching me at this time. He has made promises to me. He has told me of things that will be in my life and He is faithful and will bring these promises to fruition– IF I remain faithful to Him. If I let go of my stubborn pride and idols and allow Him to truly be the center of my life. I need to renounce those things and allow God to work  in me so that He can fulfill those promises. Not just so He can. God is God and He can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants. We can not control Him. And I don't just want to do those things to "get" what He promised me. No, I want to do those things because I love Him, because He is all that is important. I want a relationship with Him, one not tainted by other idols or that involves distraction. I want to be able to fully focus on Him, what He's doing now, and what He will do next.  I desire the closeness that Jeremiah had with Him.
       I have renounced those things this evening. I renounce those false idols I have built up in my heart. I return God to His rightful place in my heart, on His throne, Lord over every part of me. He is back at the center. I surrender all. I've repented and He has forgiven,as He always does. My God is the God of Love and His grace never ends. Thank You Father for this revelation! Thank You for breaking down my pride and restoring my soul. You are so good to me. And suddenly, there is peace. The restlessness in my spirit it gone, confirming all the more that this was a Divine Appointment between me and my Father. Peace flows over and I can finally sleep.