Jeremiah’s Counsel

By |Published On: December 12, 2017|Categories: 4-Minute Radio Program|

Welcome to “Joni and Friends” where you’ve heard me share many times how God has used my diving accident so many years ago. How He used my quadriplegia to change me; to show me how sustaining His grace really is; He used my accident to make me more like Jesus and eventually, He even used my broken neck to start a ministry that is now reaching people with disabilities around the world with the love of Jesus. There are so many wonderful things God did through my accident, and so the memory of that tragic day is no longer tragic.

But it wasn’t always that way. There was a time when memories of that fateful day I broke my neck, all it brought was sorrow, regret and grief. I’d hate talking to people about those early days in the hospital. Those memories only made me more depressed, even early hospital visits from Christian friends. Even those memories used to make me sad. That’s the way it used to be. It was because – and here’s the important part; I want you to really listen up here – it was because I looked at every memory through the lens of my despondency. I refused to view my memories through the lens of God’s Word.

I mean, face it, memories—memories of painful times will always be gloomy, if we remain pessimistic about those sad times. But when we remember difficult times through the optimism of God’s Word, how it all fits together for His good, our good and His glory, then we are assured that God works even that awful thing out for our benefit. We are assured that nothing touched us that has not filtered first through God’s wise fingers. We are assured that even the worst of times in the past, somehow, some way, it all fits into God’s greater plan for our life. This is the sort of biblical optimism, which turns every gloomy memory into a bright awareness of the awesome, mysterious ways of God; God who turns our suffering into victory if we would but let Him.

You know, that’s exactly what happened to Jeremiah. In Lamentations Chapter 3, verses 19 to 20, he says, “I remember my affliction and my soul is downcast.” Okay, right there, you got Jeremiah allowing his emotions to take over. But then just a verse later, that same memory, of all his afflictions, it gives Jeremiah life and comfort, for he says, “This I recall to mind, and therefore have I hope.” Like a two-edged sword, the same memory first humbles him with one edge, and then lifts him up out of despair with the other.

Charles Spurgeon wrote that: “A person who tends toward despairing thoughts will remember every dark foreboding in the past, and focus on every gloomy feature in the present. Thus memory, clothed in sackcloth, becomes a cup of gall and wormwood. But this need not be. Wisdom can transform memory into an angel of comfort. Because the same memory which, in its left hand brings gloomy omens, can be trained to bear in its right hand, the wealth of hopeful signs. There is no need for God to create a new thing in order to restore our joy; if we would but rake the ashes of the past, we would find light in our present darkness.”

My goodness, friend listening, don’t let your memories breed despondency. No, please let each of your memories be a reason for joyful hope as you view them through the lens of God’s Word. And if you need prayer for help doing that, please let me know today on my radio page at joniandfriends.org. And let’s turn our sad memories into something joyful.

© Joni and Friends

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