Editor’s note: This Lent season, Bread Blog is running a series of devotionals written by staff, alumni, and friends of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
By Cameron Highsmith
Everything comes back to God.
Everyone comes back to God.
Those who are lost.
Those who are gone.
God calls them all to return.
God calls all to return to God.
In our pain, God promises redemption. Despite our weeping and tears, God promises us rejoicing and dancing. God promises to turn our mourning into joy and to exchange our gladness for sorrow. God calls us back from the wilderness into promise.
These verses of Jeremiah express our eternal hope in God’s redemption. Rachel weeps for her children. Yet God comforts: “… they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the Lord.” In the exhaustive and painful lives we lead, God calls us all back. We feel pain, doubt, and despair and we will not be comforted. But God calls us to return. There is hope for your future.
In God, we find hope.
In God, we return to hope.
In God, we turn back to the future.
In God, our children shall come back to their own country.
Cameron Highsmith earned a Master of Divinity in 2014 from San Francisco Theological Seminary.
