Lam. 1-2
All of the idols and nations and things that God’s people turned to failed them. But as for God, “The LORD has done what He purposed; He has carried out His word which He commanded long ago” (Lam 2:17). God demonstrated time and time again that He alone is God. What He says will stand, and there is nothing and no one that can stand against Him. God’s people knew this, but “she took no thought of her future, therefore her fall is terrible” (Lam 1:9). We now have all this history, all this evidence, all this knowledge of God. We, like the early Jews, know that there is no other, if we choose to believe the truth. Let us work fervently to think of our future so that we remember what we know and are not lured away by things that cannot save.
Heb. 12
Hebrews 12 seems to speak to this same point. Life is full of things that weigh us down, that distract and tempt us, that tire and frustrate us. But we need to keep the end in sight, giving thought to our eternal future. We need to remember that God is God and that He has made us His children. It is so easy to get caught up in the perspective of the here and now. But when that becomes our focus we make the wrong decisions, “like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal” (Heb 12:16b).