Self Inflicted?

In the midst of the Israelites trading the living God for the idols of their neighbors, Jeremiah ask this question:

2:17  Have you brought this upon yourself by forsaking the LORD your God, while he led you in the way?

Many times when we are going through rough times we simply can’t imagine why we would have to go through them.  Never do we stop and ask, “did I bring it upon myself?” .  You see when you give up on God and abandon His ways He will not ignore those choices.  Discipline will come into play, as well as conviction.  When we come to a place in our lives where we no longer find it important to live the way God has told us to and we replace it with the methods and practices of the world; we just need to expect that God loves us so much that He will not sit idly by and give Satan the victory over us.  God will push us to the point of having to ask our self “is this my own fault?, did I screw up?, do I really have no one to blame but myself?”.  And only when we are willing to honestly answer those questions is when we can move forward.