Are we headed to the discovery zone?

Believe it or not, some of the best places to discover God’s love is when you are in Babylon (exile). In light of what we are going through now, with many nations falling under stay-home orders, you may feel like you are in captivity or bondage. Some are trapped indoors with the kids and the dog and the cat. Others fell imprisoned with a spouse or partner that previously they only saw four-to-six hours out of the twenty-four-hour day. Others are stuck with themselves, now that is a whole different issue, right?! Yet, on a serious note, our hearts and prayers are going out to those families that are more intimately impacted and affected by the devastating COVID-19 virus.

Nonetheless, God has spared some, and for those who have been blessed but required to be at home, you may still feel you don’t deserve it when little do you know or understand it is appointed unto you by God – YOU are in His will. The safest place is always in the will of God. What is just as important to remember is that your exile, captivity, or bondage is NOT your home. You are just passing through. The devastation we are experiencing is real. You are seeing and touching it in the natural, but you are failing to understand it in the spiritual realm.

God’s purpose concealed.

It seems plausible that if your captivity is self-imposed, it is well deserved. However, the mystery remains, and the struggle for most is to understand how a God of love, who created us in His image, would cause us to be carried away into seasons or places of captivity because He deemed this is what is best for us.

God says to Judah and you (insert your name here), “I love you so much that I will cause you to go through a period of travail and captivity. I will purposely move you from a place of comfort where all your needs are met and separate you from your friends and family. Not only that, but I will strategically place you in a condition of bondage. I will disrupt your daily routines and your commonplaces of fellowship.”

What does God expect to accomplish in us through our period of captivity? Well, I am glad you asked. God wants to increase your spiritual growth, enlarge your vision of who He is, and teach you how to worship Him in spirit and truth. Through these sufferings, God reveals His character and Deity to us according to His names. He is El-Shaddai, which is the name of God that manifests Him as our strengthener and satisfier. Through this character, God chastens His people unto greater fruit-bearing. God also accomplishes this by purifying us through purging. Babylon is a (our) place of purging. Yes, there is a cleansing needed in the earth.

God’s purpose revealed.

Purging removes those things from within us that is not pleasing to God as well as those things that make us marred and unholy before God. Purging is a result of Genesis 1:23 wherein God declares He made us in His image. Therefore, when He looks at us, and He does not see His image (His heavenly characteristics) in the reflection, He gets to work, and into captivity, we go.

Jeremiah 29:4,11
4 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon; 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Click here to read more in my book Sorting Through God’s Love Chapter Four Why God Loves Me.

Day 7, Oh What A Relief It Is 05 07 20