Readings for today: Jeremiah 17-20
Life with God can be a roller coaster. It’s not always unicorns and rainbows and bubbles and sunshine. It’s not always a mountaintop spiritual experience. It’s not always positive and encouraging. Sometimes it’s painful and hard. Sometimes confusing and complex. Sometimes depressingly difficult. That’s what I love most about Jeremiah. He doesn’t hold back at all with God. He’s honest and transparent. He’s unafraid to come before God as he is, warts and all. Listen especially to his words from Jeremiah 20:7-18 (MSG)…
“You pushed me into this, God, and I let you do it. You were too much for me. And now I’m a public joke. They all poke fun at me. Every time I open my mouth I’m shouting, “Murder!” or “Rape!” And all I get for my God-warnings are insults and contempt…” Jeremiah has been whipped and beaten and imprisoned for preaching God’s Word to His people. He has been abused and mistreated and oppressed. It’s not fair. It’s not just. It’s not okay. And Jeremiah lays the blame at God’s feet.
At the same time, Jeremiah knows he cannot quit. He cannot help himself. If he tries to walk away from his calling, he will regret it. The pressure builds deep in his gut. There’s a burning in his bones. He simply cannot turn a blind eye to all the sin and injustice he sees on display. “But if I say, “Forget it! No more God-Messages from me!” The words are fire in my belly, a burning in my bones. I’m worn out trying to hold it in. I can’t do it any longer! Then I hear whispering behind my back: “There goes old ‘Danger-Everywhere.’ Shut him up! Report him!” Old friends watch, hoping I’ll fall flat on my face: “One misstep and we’ll have him. We’ll get rid of him for good!”
Throughout his struggles, his faith in God endures. His trust in God never seems to waver. Despite the ups and downs, Jeremiah continues to place his hope in the God who fights at his side. He knows God isn’t sending him into these battles alone. “But God, a most fierce warrior, is at my side. Those who are after me will be sent sprawling— Slapstick buffoons falling all over themselves, a spectacle of humiliation no one will ever forget. Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, no one fools you. You see through everyone, everything. I want to see you pay them back for what they’ve done. I rest my case with you. Sing to God! All praise to God! He saves the weak from the grip of the wicked.”
It’s been my experience that faith and doubt often go together. Deep trust and hard questions can co-exist. Praise and pain are part and parcel of the Christian life. As much as Jeremiah looks to God and praises Him amidst all the challenges he faces, he also wishes with all his heart that he didn’t have to go through these trials. “Curse the day I was born! The day my mother bore me— a curse on it, I say! And curse the man who delivered the news to my father: “You’ve got a new baby—a boy baby!” (How happy it made him.) Let that birth notice be blacked out, deleted from the records, And the man who brought it haunted to his death with the bad news he brought. He should have killed me before I was born, with that womb as my tomb, My mother pregnant for the rest of her life with a baby dead in her womb. Why, oh why, did I ever leave that womb? Life’s been nothing but trouble and tears, and what’s coming is more of the same.”
I hope today’s reading is as encouraging for you as it is for me. There are so many pressures, particularly in the American church today, to pretend like everything’s okay. We have a hard time expressing our deepest, most heartbreaking emotions or asking our most difficult questions. Somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that sharing these things somehow reflected a lack of faith when, in fact, the opposite is true. Life with God is not always up and to the right. It’s not always positive. Not every prayer gets answered in the way we want. Not every act of obedience will result in praise from those around us or material blessings in this world. This is probably one of the biggest lessons I learn from my brothers and sisters who practice their faith in the developing world. Their lives are full of immense hardship and suffering and persecution and yet, they cling to God. May we have the courage to do the same.
Readings for tomorrow: Jeremiah 21-24