A Linen Belt
1 This is what the LORD said to me: "Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water." 2 So I bought a belt, as the LORD directed, and put it around my waist.
3 Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time: 4 "Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath [a] and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks." 5 So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD told me.
6 Many days later the LORD said to me, "Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there." 7 So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless.
8 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 9 "This is what the LORD says: 'In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt—completely useless! 11 For as a belt is bound around a man's waist, so I bound the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to me,' declares the LORD, 'to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.'
Lord, would You make us faithful and obedient. That even if we don't understand Your ways, we trust You and love You. Thank You that You do not waste time, that You use everything for a specific purpose and reason. Would You save UCSD from destruction, Lord, and pour out Your spirit in TRUTH and LOVE that we would be drawn to You not by empty rhetoric or enticing but shallow promises, but by Your lovingkindness, Your faithfulness, Your promises of restoration, joy, peace, and wholeness. Would we love You deeply, and set our gaze upon that.
Abba, raise up intercessors and lovers on campus who will listen to You and who will seek Your heart through prayer, fasting, and worship to give You room to move as You already have planned.
Abba, make us a campus who clings to You but does not turn away or shift out gaze. Make us like a belt that does not fall off, make us steadfast to You because other things just aren't appealing.
Lord, we trust Your timing and we will keep pursuing a move of the Holy Spirit, not convincing You to give it to us, but because it softens our hearts to receive what You already have planned.
Thank You for Your mercy, God, and grant us favor to see all people who don't know You come to love You and come to live in the fullness of what You have intended for every person, that we won't become like a linen belt that was once beautiful and purposeful but has fallen off and gone astray.
Thank You that Your ways are higher than our ways.
Abba, we wait for You in confidence that You are bringing your SHEKINAH GLORY to campus and to each of our lives.
In Jesus' name we pray,
Amen
-Lord, we trust Your timing and we will keep pursuing a move of the Holy Spirit, not convincing You to give it to us, but because it softens our hearts to receive what You already have planned.
ReplyDeleteYes Lord. We will persevere with confidence in Your perfect plans and in Your perfect goodness. Lord we pray with a boldness that only comes from deep desperation, from knowing that we have nothing to offer except our hunger for Your passionate, fiery Love. Soften our hard hearts, Father.