The Kindness of Strangers…

“…I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”  Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire”.

When I saw this movie years ago, this particular quote stuck in my mind.  It’s such a sad declaration of passivity and resignation to a hapless fate.  As people of God, we are not to be passive or forlorn in our outlook on our future.  We serve the Living God, who blesses us and equips us to be more than overcomers.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.”  Jeremiah 29:11-14

No matter what is going on all around us, we are children of promise.  God has told us that His intent towards us is to give us a “future and a hope”.  We can depend on His Word.  However, if He is a stranger to us, we are wrong to depend upon Him.  God is gracious and kind and will meet us at our point of need.  But as believers, we are to grow in our knowledge of Him.  The time to grow in faith and knowledge of His love is in the here and now, not only during times of crisis. 

If you wait until a time of crisis to seek God, you are depending upon the kindness of a stranger.  Even as believers in Christ, He can remain a stranger to us.  This happens when we do not seek Him.  God Himself says through the prophet Jeremiah in these verses that we will find Him when we search for Him with all our heart.  Christianity is not for the half-hearted or the faint-hearted.  The Word of God calls us to total abandonment to His Word and His Will.  That is the doorway to His blessing upon our lives – to living a life of purpose and joy and strength. 

Yesterday I read a news columnist’s opinion that we live in a time when many are giving up on the hope of tomorrow.  In our culture, the American dream seems to be turning to ash as people lose their homes, or walk away from their homes.  Much of the news we hear every day is dire and calamitous. But as children of God, we understand through His word that we are not subject to the world system.  We are subjects of the King – God Himself, who created all things.  He is our source for everything we need; He is the one who will even give us the desires of our hearts.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not relegated to the past.  However, the shaking in our economy and in government shows us that we cannot depend upon world systems for these things.  The source of our life and liberty and happiness is God and His Kingdom.  The kingdoms of this world rise and fall - history has proven that out – but the Kingdom of God is eternal and cannot fall.

Seek God and find Him.  You will find He is more than enough.

Rhonda J. Roughton
Rhonda is founder of INK Ministries. INK Ministries' mission is to build up the body of Christ through writing, preaching and teaching with an emphasis on the New Covenant and who we are in Christ. "Write down the vision and make it plain on tablets so that whoever reads it may run with it." Habakkuk 2:2-3. This is a "hands-on" ministry as well as a writing ministry - moving in the gifts and power of the Holy Spiit to bring hope, healing and deliverance to all those who hunger for more of Him.