Hershey "High"
Did you know that when you get within a mile or so of Hershey, PA you can actually smell chocolate? Upon arriving at the Hershey Lodge last Thursday, I was given a Hershey chocolate bar and it seemed that everywhere I turned chocolate appeared. 4 kisses on the nightstand each evening, a chocolate bar on the morning tray with my oatmeal, and a box of almond Hershey bars as a welcome! The bathroom soap smelled of chocolate and even the sheets had Hershey kiss designs on them! But, my "high" wasn't from all the chocolate. It was from being in a room of 3,000+ women who were hungry for the word of God and where over 150 accepted Christ. SWEET!
A couple of weeks ago I started studying Hosea with a kindred spirit. So, passages from Hosea and my recent "Playing the harlot" blogs were fresh on my heart when I arrived in chocolate world. And, God decided to use the weekend to even dig deeper into my heart. No, not by testing me with so much chocolate, but by using His word!
Kay Arthur started her first session with declaring truth had stumbled in the streets (Isaiah 59:14-20). My role for the weekend was to stay close to her side, take notes, learn and assist her in any way I could. When she "stumbled" across the stage she got everyone's attention and I almost had a heart attack. Then, I realized she was illustrating this verse! Truth HAS stumbled in the streets and truth is lacking. From there she went to Hosea 4:6 and Isaiah 5:13. Both reminders that God's people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge and that we have rejected knowledge. I have resembled these verses. Each session was more powerful than the next but the verse of the weekend for me was Jeremiah 2:11-13. It says....Has a nation changed gods when they were not gods? But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold not water. I don't think I'd ever seen verse 11 before. My people have changed THEIR glory for that which does not profit. Every time I play the harlot that's what I do and why oh why would I change my glory for that which does not profit? I forget what I know. I go by what I see, feel....and not by faith. God spoke such wonderful truths into my heart this weekend and I rejoice...Stepping out - walking by faith not sight!
What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! Psalm 8:4-5
