Future Faithfulness

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading was written by Karen Pimbo, and she titled it Future Faithfulness. Sarah lost her mother when she was just 14 years old. She and her siblings lost their house soon after and became homeless. Years later, Sarah wanted to provide her future children with an inheritance that could be passed down from generation to generation.

She worked hard to purchase a house, giving her family the stable home she never had. Investing in a home for future generations is an act of faith toward a future you don't yet see. God told the prophet Jeremiah to purchase land just before the violent siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. To the prophet, God's instructions didn't make a lot of sense.

Soon, all their property and belongings would be confiscated. But God gave Jeremiah this promise in Jeremiah 32, As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. The prophet's investment in property was a physical sign of God's faithfulness to someday restore the Israelites to their homeland. Even in the midst of a terrible attack, God promised his people that peace would come again.

Homes and property would be bought and sold again. Today, we can put our trust in God's faithfulness and choose to invest in faith. Although we may not see an earthly restoration of every situation, we have the assurance that He'll someday make everything right. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Jeremiah chapter 32, verses 37 through 44. I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banished them in my furious anger and great wrath. I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul. This is what the Lord says, Let's pray. Dear God, we are often fearful of the future because we can't predict what will happen. Thank you for the assurance we have that you hold the future in your hand and that you hold us in your hand as well. Help us to invest in the future that we can't see, knowing that we can trust you with it. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.