His Eye On His Word To You

What do you see, Jeremiah?

That was the first question God asked the prophet on the day Jeremiah was inaugurated into his prophetic ministry.

It is the same question God frequently asked His prophets right before they received a “word” from the Lord.

Dr. Rickie Moore, Old Testament Professor at Lee University, says that the English word for what a prophet sees or hears, comes from the Hebrew word, davar, “…the davar of YHWH.” Dr. Moore says that this “davar” is “no mere datum of information. It is more like a quantum of transformation, an event that happens to the prophet.”

It is a life-changing encounter with the living God.

Jeremiah’s first “davar” was a vision of a branch of an almond tree.

The significance of this vision is that the almond tree in Israel was the first of all trees to “wake up” and bloom in the Spring. That little fact helps make sense of God’s answer then to Jeremiah.

“You have seen correctly, for I am watching [wakeful] to see that My word is fulfilled.” (Jeremiah 1:12)

We forget that all too often in our haste to see God do what He has promised NOW! TODAY!

What has God said to you, shown you, promised you?

What is the “davar” of the Lord to you?

It doesn’t matter how long it may take to be accomplished.

“He who keeps Israel [God’s people] will neither slumber nor sleep.” (Psalm 121:4)

God has not forgotten His word to you!

His watchful eye is on His word to you and He will accomplish it.

During the time of the Judges, around 1100 BC, Boaz negotiated in the presence of the elders, at the city gate of Bethlehem, to be Naomi and Ruth’s kinsman redeemer. When the deal was done, the elders spoke a blessing over Boaz, “May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel” (Ruth 4:11).

Turns out that blessing was a “davar” from the Lord for Boaz and his unlikely Moabite wife, Ruth. Only, neither he nor the elders comprehended at the time the significance of what God would do 1100 years later through the seed of Boaz and Ruth… in fulfillment of that word.

But God kept His watchful eye on that word to accomplish it for eleven centuries. Through good kings and apostate kings. Through innumerable battles with enemy nations. Victories and defeats. Through the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of God’s people to Babylon. Through the tenuous return from exile, pagan overlords, even Roman occupation.

That “word” to Boaz was not lost.

Until one starry night, in that same town of Bethlehem, directly through the lineage of Boaz and Ruth, a child was born, a Son was given…”to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant” (Luke 1:72)… a covenant God promised Abraham –  to have for Himself a redeemed people who would being glory to His name in all the earth. A covenant now fulfilled in Jesus.

If God can watch over that “word” to Boaz to perform it, why do we doubt that He will not do the same for us?

Get out God’s promises to you right now.

 Dust them off.

 Renounce doubt and fear.

 Renounce impatience.

 And trust the God who watches over His word to accomplish it.