Great Plains Daily Devotional for 7/27/2020

Jeremiah 1:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

A few years ago, in western Kansas, we had quite the grasshopper infestation. I was walking downtown, and these grasshoppers would see me coming and they’d jump, traveling several feet away from me – covering the distance of probably more than 100 times the size of their little grasshopper bodies!

The amusing part was that I started wondering how things would be if we could travel like that. Think of the time we could save if we had the abilities of the common little yellow grasshopper!

And then in front of me, another one jumped, right into the face of a brick wall before falling back to the ground, closer to me than it started. Suddenly my perspective on grasshopper travel changed – if we couldn’t control our hops any better than that grasshopper, I wanted nothing to do with their kind of travel!

When God called the young man Jeremiah into service, he told him in verse 5 of Jeremiah 1: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” God has created us for what God wants us to be. When we try to become something we aren’t, it usually doesn’t end up well for us. My desire to be able to travel like a grasshopper isn’t how God created me to be. Instead, my purpose is to fulfill God’s desire for me, to fulfill the purpose God has set out for me. To be something else isn’t in the plan.

I invite you to seek out God and allow yourselves to listen for when God speaks to you. It may require some time in prayer – sometime away from the busy nature of our lives. But listen to God and be who God wants you to be. Have a blessed day! 
   
 

Prayer for Reflection

Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52