Simplify...

As 2025 was winding down, literally, the last day...I was thinking about how hectic, crazy, and painful it had been.  I lost several friends, including my very good and dear friend Bill; then in October my Mommy passed away, a huge heart-hit!  My position was overrun, in every direction commitments, demands and decisions where rapidly, overwhelming me.  I was beatdown, dragging, bloodied and wounded.

One morning, SEEKING HELP, I found the words of one of God's spokes persons drawing me in...  God brought to mind a verse I'd read, and heard from the lips of many a pastor and lover of God over my 41 years of being a God lover.

"Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  Lamentations 3:22-23

Jeremiah, hit the nail on the head, known for being the "Weeping Prophet" he had endured the most heavy duty beat-down you and I could ever imagine, from both God and the people he loved and served...with every ounce of his being; his people, the Jewish people.  It's God's GREAT LOVE.  It's God's NEVER FAILING compassion or MERCY...His pity towards my state and person, because He cares about and hurts for me relationally, personally.  That's exactly how I was feeling, because of what I'd been through, and those I'd held dear had endured as well.  BEAT-DOWN, hopeless, just ready to quit!

I needed to taste some of those MERCIES, that just DON'T fail...; that are NEW EVERY MORNING...; that FAITHFULNESS that just doesn't quit.  Because I was ready to quit!

Jeremiah described His situation using these heavy words, dripping with suffering,

"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.  I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me."  Lamentations 3:19-20

The days of oppressive, at times violent affliction haunt me like an unending nightmare; there taste is bitter, my body is writhing and shuttering, retching under the poisonous, nearly deadly ordeal...not yet over.  Jeremiah was in a dark place, his mind, heart, SOUL, utterly consumed; he was in a desperate place physically, mentally, and emotionally; his life, even his breath was slowly, but surely ebbing AWAY.  "Yet," he exclaims, "this I call to mind and therefore I have hope..." (Lam.3:21a).  Then, in that moment of darkest despair, a miraculous flash: his mind, heart, SOUL RETURNS, better yet, TURNS BACK TO his ONLY hope.

"I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.'  The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."  Lamentations 3:24-26

Jeremiah clings to the PERSON who is his HOPE, his Yah-Weh-Almight-Promise Keeping and FOR-EVER Loyal-Lord!  Jeremiah returns to sanity, to security, to strength, encouragement now coursing through his veins he RETURNS to his FIRST LOVE, his God and there, declares, "It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

That's Jeremiah's, Simplify...  I too was hungering for some simplify...

How about you?

Next week, we'll catch Jesus in a desperate situation facing off with the Devil; here in the wilderness Jesus has something to say about, Simplify.