This was the James MacDonald email devotional from yesterday.  I really liked it a lot!  You can read it at the website HERE or you can read it below...

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OUR JOURNEY

05

Sep

Call to Me!

James MacDonald

¹The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time, while he 

was still shut up in the court of the guard: ²“Thus says the LORD who 

made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it—the LORD is 

his name: ³Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great 

and hidden things that you have not known. —Jeremiah 33:1-3

How many words do you speak in a day? The average person speaks 

34,000 words a day. That same person admits, "I haven't read a book 

in like six months." No, but you talk a half a book every day! If we're all 

talking a half a book a day, how many of those words—is there even a 

page of dialogue with God? When was the last time you gave half a 

chapter in a single day to the God who says, “Call to Me?”

Now, notice the word call. That's an invitation to intensity. God invites 

us not to whimper to Him or to whisper to Him. God is not, "Say 

something to Me." 

              “How do you want us to talk to You, God? 

              "I want you to call."

That's an expression of urgency, intensity, and fervency. It’s an 

invitation to shameless and loud intimacy! God says, “Call to Me.”

The implication of God’s invitation is that it allows us to call any time 

and all the time. We’ve got 24/7 access to our heavenly Father. But 

the situation in which Jeremiah found himself when this invitation was 

issued holds a significant lesson for us. “The word of the LORD came 

to Jeremiah (that’s glory coming down here) a second time while he 

was shut up in the court of the guard” (v.1). That’s a way of saying 

he was under guard—in prison. In one way or another he was 

restricted. Based on parallel experiences, we can say we sometimes 

find ourselves in some kind of a prison. We can identify with being 

“shut up in the court of the guard.”

“I'm locked in. I can't get out of this situation with my job, with my 

health, with my family. I feel like I am imprisoned by my 

circumstances right now. What should I do?” 

We listen in as God says, "Hey, Jeremiah, how's it going for 

you today?" 

"Not great. I'm in prison for You. Things are not looking up. 

What do you want me to do now?" 

"Call to Me, son; call to Me." 

Can you hear God extending that same standing invitation to 

you? “Call to Me, My child."