Outcast
Day 373, Tuesday, Aug. 19
Jeremiah Chapters 30 – 31:9
In a pattern typical of Jeremiah, today’s reading alternates between predictions of destruction and assurances that God will, in the end, always love and restore Israel.
This is often the pattern of our own lives as well—seasons of suffering interspersed with assurances of God’s faithfulness.
God is on the side of his people precisely because no one else is, Jeremiah says in 30:17. “But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the Lord, because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares.”

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Tuesday meditation

Job 22:21-30
“Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored: If you remove wickedness far from your tent and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines, then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you. Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God. You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows. What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways. When people are brought low and you say, ‘Lift them up!’ then he will save the downcast. He will deliver even one who is not innocent, who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

Prayer focus
Lord, when we feel like outcasts draw us to yourself.