9 Those killed by the sword are better off
than those who die of hunger.
Starving, they waste away
for lack of food from the fields.
10 Tenderhearted women
have cooked their own children.
They have eaten them
to survive the siege.
11 But now the anger of the Lord is satisfied.
His fierce anger has been poured out.
He started a fire in Jerusalem
that burned the city to its foundations.
Marvel movies are probably the best comic book to movie docuseries I have ever seen. In one of the movies, Endgame, Thanos has control of all five of the stones, and he snaps his fingers, and over half of the world’s people just vanish into dust. This brings the Avengers to their very end. They exile themselves from each other until they band together for one last chance to bring everyone back and undo what Thanos did when he snapped his fingers.
Getting to the bottom is not so easy. Typically, you start out on top. You have all you need, all you desire, you have no lack, in short, life is good. This place in life can bring many of us to a point where we lose our dependence upon the Lord. In our cocky nature, we stop spending time with our Lord. This carries on, and we stop rebuking the sin in our lives, giving Satan a foothold. This foothold turns into a ledge, and soon enough you begin to build an idol that you know is against the Lord. Your heart, in its current place, is just stubborn enough to justify the idol so it doesn’t get torn down.
You see, when you don’t pay attention to and actively get rid of the sin and idols in your life, they don’t just stay the same size. They grow. They start to take over areas of your life that were once wholly devoted to the Lord, and soon your heart is black enough to not care. The bottom is coming.
You are not on top anymore. You are spiraling out of control, and you don’t even know it. Like a frog slowly boiling in a pot of water, your life is getting cooked and changing into something even you don’t like. You start making compromises. Compromises to survive in your eyes, but in reality, they are addictions dragging you down even further than you understand. Your friends leave, your family is distant, and your life is much more out of control than you would like to admit. Soon enough, you do things that even disgust you, and in your black state, you even prey upon your own friends and family, hoping to steal or con them into providing for you so you can keep feeding the same thing that is killing you.
Welcome to the bottom. It has been waiting for you.
This is the state that the Israelites were in, at the bottom. Women were boiling their children and eating them to survive. The thought of death was more appealing than living. Their bodies were skin and bones. While this is a terrible place to be, it is exactly where you end up when you decide to reject the Lord. Verse 11 tells us that the Lord started a fire in Jerusalem and let it burn until nothing was left but the foundation.
This is a warning and a sign of hope. The Lord did not leave Israel, and He will not leave you. When our lives are out of control, sometimes a complete wiping of the hard drive is in order. At the bottom, you may not be in a great place, but Psalm 23 assures us that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He is with us. If you let Him, He will guide you to a place where you are at peace with your demons, having cast them from your life and walking in victory. The bottom is real, and Israel had to experience it in order to repent and come back to the Lord.
The question is, how far will you go before you turn back to the Lord? Will it be when you are on top and still listening to the Lord, or will it be when you need a complete burn to the foundation?
It is your choice.
Prayer: Father, I pray that we heed Your correction in our lives. I pray that we acknowledge You in every area of our lives. Help us to turn from our sins and follow You. I pray and repent of everything I have done that is against You, and I bow before Your throne with my hands up in reverence to You. Come into my heart and change me, Lord. I make You Lord over all of me today, and I repent of every sin. I know You will come and change me and wipe away my sin. I look forward to striving to get to know You every day.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Let It Go 
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