Jeremiah’s prayer

Remember. Renew. Restore.

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But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days? Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old—unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us. – Lamentations 5:19-22 ESV

Jeremiah was living in what was the ruins of Jerusalem. He is surrounded by a rag-tag remnant of individuals who were left behind by the Babylonians after they took tens of thousands of their fellow Israelites into captivity. In the earlier part of Jeremiah’s prayer, recorded in chapter 5, he gave God a vivid description of their circumstances. They were living in disgrace. In keeping with the book’s name, Jeremiah laments, “Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows” (Jeremiah 5:2-3 ESV). They were having to pay for clean water to drink and wood to burn. They had resorted to alliances with Egypt and Assyria just to be able to have bread to eat. Crime was on an upswing. It wasn’t safe to go into the wilderness. Jeremiah reported, “Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah” (Lamentations 5:11 ESV). Everyone was forced to work in order to exist. There was no longer any joy or any reason to celebrate or dance. And Jeremiah knew that their circumstances were the result of their own sin and rebellion against God. While the remnant that remained had escaped captivity, they were trapped in an endless cycle of poverty and despair. They were living in the land of Judah, but without any of the blessings or benefits they had known before.

And in the midst of all the pain and suffering, Jeremiah called out to the only one who could do anything about it. He turned to God, acknowledging His power and sovereignty. “But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.” Everything else was unstable and insecure, but not God. The temple may have been destroyed, but the one for whom it had been built was alive and well. The city of Jerusalem may have fallen and the king of Judah taken captive and humiliated, but God remained King of the universe. God remained the one stable factor in Jeremiah’s topsy-turvy world. But Jeremiah couldn’t help but feel that God had somehow forgotten them. He knew that God had promised to restore the people to the land, in spite of all that they had done. But each day Jeremiah woke up to the same sad circumstances. Poverty, injustice, pain, suffering, and hopelessness. He wondered when God was going to keep His word. When would God step in and do what He had promised to do? Jeremiah pleaded with God to restore them and to renew things back to the way they used to be. He longed for the good old days. But he knew that any hope of restoration was up to God. He would have to do it. As a people, they were completely incapable of saving themselves. Those in captivity were helpless to do anything about their situation. Those left behind in Judah were powerless to change their circumstances. They needed God.

It is amazing how quickly we can become God-focused when we find ourselves in a jam from which we can’t escape. Nothing improves our prayer lives like troubles and trials. The feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are great motivators when it comes to our spiritual lives. We seem to operate on the maxim: when all else fails, try God. But Jeremiah wasn’t turning to God as a last resort. He was appealing to his one and only hope. Without God, all was lost. There were no other viable options. God alone was capable of doing anything about their predicament. But sadly, many Christians always have another trick up their sleeve or another option to turn to other than God. Whether through pride or a lack of faith, far too many of us make God our desperation destiny. When all is lost, we turn to Him. And amazingly, He is always there. He is the one consistent, unchanging and constantly reliable reality we can count on. Jeremiah ended his prayer and his book with the words, “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old—unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us.” I don’t think Jeremiah believed that was the case. He knew his God all too well to think that He would abandon them forever. He had heard God promise to restore them. He had obeyed when God told him to purchase land in Judah as an investment for the future. He knew in his heart of hearts that God was going to remember, renew and restore. But that did not stop him from wondering when it would all happen. It did not prevent him from asking God to move the timeline up.

And we know that God kept His word. He did eventually restore the people to the land. He brought them back out of captivity and allowed them to rebuild the temple, restore the walls of Jerusalem and repopulate the land. He did exactly what He had promised to do. Catastrophe and captivity were no match for God. The hopelessness and helplessness of men were poor indicators of God’s capabilities. To Him, the circumstances were nothing more than an opportunity, not an obstacle. At no point was God worried, concerned, or sitting up in heaven wringing His hands, wondering what He was going to do. He was and is the Lord God, who reigns forever. He is the King of the universe, the all-powerful God for whom nothing is too difficult. He will remember. He will renew. He will restore. We can rely on Him.

God Has Seen. He Will Redeem.

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You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; judge my cause. You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. – Lamentations 3:56-58 ESV

Jeremiah had been through a lot. He had been a prophet for God, delivering a message of repentance and warning of future judgment if that message was ignored. Not only was his message unaccepted, his own people persecuted, rejected and even physically attacked him for his efforts. And eventually, Jeremiah had to stand by and watch as the city of Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. He had to witness the destruction of the temple of God. He had a front row seat to the deportation of the people as they were shipped out as captives of the Babylonian king and his conquering army. And while Jeremiah was allowed to remain in the land of Judah along with a remnant of the people, he fared no better than before. He was still despised. He was blamed for all that had happened. He had no friends, only enemies. There were even times when he felt alienated and abandoned by God. “He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy;  though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked” (Lamentations 3:7-9 ESV). Jeremiah found himself in a dark place emotionally and spiritually. He confessed, “my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, ‘My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord’” (Lamentations 3:17-18 ESV). But as we saw in yesterday’s post, Jeremiah had one thing he continued to hang on to during his dark days of despair. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:21-23 ESV).

The love and faithfulness of God. That is what kept Jeremiah going. And for Jeremiah, it was not some nebulous, bible-verse-on-a-plaque concept. It was real and he had experienced it in his own life. God had been loving and faithful to him in the past, so he knew that it was possible for God to be that way even under his current circumstances. God had taken up Jeremiah’s cause before. He had redeemed Jeremiah’s life on more than one occasion over the years. So why couldn’t He and why wouldn’t He do so now? Jeremiah knew that God was fully aware of what was going on. He had seen it all. He wasn’t not blind or oblivious to Jeremiah’s difficulties. Jeremiah’s God was compassionate and fully cognizant of his circumstances. After all, God had been the one to orchestrate all that had happened. There was nothing Jeremiah said in chapter three that God was not aware of already or for which He had a failed to prepare a plan of action. The question wasn’t whether God would redeem, but simply when and how. Jeremiah had no way of knowing just what God would do. He had no idea when God would do it. But he had hope based on past experience that God WOULD do something. Jeremiah believed, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:25-26 ESV). 

The temptation we face when going through a difficult time like Jeremiah is to lash out, if not at God, at others. We especially want to verbally attach those who are harming us. We want to take revenge and enact vengeance on those who persecuting us. But Jeremiah says it is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It’s hard to keep our mouths shut when those around us are casting dispersions on our character or attacking us with their words. Yet Jeremiah said, “You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me. The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long. Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts” (Lamentations 3:61-63 ESV). I am sure there was a part of Jeremiah that wanted to lash out and light up his opponents. He wanted to give them a piece of his mind. He would have loved to have been able to defend himself and expose the lies of his enemies. But instead, he was willing to trust God. He sees. He will redeem. In the last three verses of his prayer, Jeremiah states, “You will repay them…”, “you will give them…, “your curse will be on them…”, “you will pursue them….” In other words, God had this handled. He would do what needed to be done. He would redeem. And Jeremiah was content to let God do it His way and according to His timeline. In the meantime, he would quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

We sometimes have a hard time believing that God sees what is going on. We either believe He is indifferent and doesn’t care or is too busy and preoccupied with more significant issues. And because we don’t think God sees, we doubt that He will redeem. That’s when we are tempted to take matters into our own hands. We seem our own vengeance. We attempt to act as our own savior. Rather than quietly wait on God’s salvation, we step in and, sadly, we screw things up. Waiting on God can be difficult. Remaining quiet can be practically impossible. But when we have a long history of having seen God work in our lives, it is far easier to trust Him. His past acts of redemption make future waiting on Him less difficult. That is why Jeremiah said, “You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.” God had proven Himself faithful in the past. He would prove himself faithful in the future. He has seen. He will redeem.  

Don’t Fear. He Hears.

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I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help!” You came near when I called on you; you said, “Do not fear!” – Lamentations 3:55-57 ESV

This prayer, recorded in the book of Lamentations is found in the midst of a lengthy section that recounts the faithfulness of God. The book was more than likely written by Jeremiah and is a post-captivity record of his reflections on all that had happened to Judah as a result of their refusal to return to the Lord. Their stubborn rebellion had brought about the fall of the city of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the exile of the people of Judah to the land of Babylon. Jeremiah remained behind and the book of Lamentations contains his thoughts on all that had happened. The book opens with the following statement: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave” (Lamentations 1:1 ESV). The first chapter paints a bleak and depressing scene as Jeremiah, sitting in the abandoned city of Jerusalem, recalls the cause of the nation’s fall from grace. He pulls no punches when he writes, “the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions” (Lamentations 1:5 ESV). “Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy” (Lamentations 1:8 ESV). “Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future” (Lamentations 1:9 ESV). All that had happened was the result of their sin and the work of God. “The Lord has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes” (Lamentations 2:17 ESV).

In chapter three, Jeremiah recounts his own suffering during his days as the prophet of God. He had spent years attempting to call the people of Judah to repentance, but with no success. He endured rejection, ridicule and even physical abuse as a result of his ministry. There had been days when he felt all alone and it seemed as if God had abandoned him. He had gotten so low that it led him to say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord” (Lamentations 3:18 ESV). But in the midst of all his sorrow, he kept going back to the one thing he knew about God. He was loving and faithful. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (Lamentations 3:21-24 ESV). Even while sitting in the middle of a burned out, broken down, and abandoned city, Jeremiah could think about the love and mercy of God. Even though he knew that the destruction of Judah had been the work of God, it did not change his view of God. He was able to say, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:25-27 ESV). He knew that God’s punishment had been justified and had been done out of love. He also knew that, “though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love” (Lamentations 3:32 ESV).

For Jeremiah it was pretty simple. The people of Judah had gotten what they had deserved. They had no right to shake their fists at God in anger or accuse Him of injustice. “Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!” (Lamentations 3:39-40 ESV). Their circumstances called for a time of reflection and self-examination. They needed to focus on and own up to their own sinfulness. They desperately needed to come to the point where they could confess, “We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven” (Lamentations 3:42 ESV). But Jeremiah knew that no matter how bad things got or how deep their pit of despair may feel, their God would hear them when they called out. He knew it from personal experience. “I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea.” He had known what it is like to have God come near when called. He had heard God say, “Do not fear!” There is no sin too great for God to forgive. There is no pit so deep that God cannot reach down His hand and rescue. There is no cry He can’t hear. All He asks is that we acknowledge our sin, admit our need for Him, and return to Him in humility and dependence.

Too often, our cries to God are based solely on what we want Him to do for us. We want His deliverance from pain and suffering more than we want Him. We want Him to rescue us from our predicament, but we don’t necessarily want to submit to His lordship over our life. We want Him to fix our problem, but don’t want to admit that we were the cause of it. One of the hardest things for us to do is to test and examine our ways. We don’t want to take ownership for our sin. We don’t want to admit guilt. We would rather justify our actions. It is difficult for us to say, “We have transgressed and rebelled.” But confession is essential if we want to experience God’s forgiveness. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ESV). We don’t need to fear, because He hears. But he wants to hear us call with repentant hearts, openly confessing our sins and humbly submitting to His will for our lives.

Trust Me.

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Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it. Yet you, O Lord God, have said to me, “Buy the field for money and get witnesses”—though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. – Jeremiah 32:24-25 ESV

Jeremiah 32:17-25

Things could not have looked any bleaker than they did when Jeremiah prayed this prayer. The armies of Babylon were camped outside the city of Jerusalem, siege mounds surrounded the walls, and disease and famine were commonplace within them. God was bringing the judgment Jeremiah had long warned would come if the people did not repent and return to Him. And yet, in the midst of the eminent threat of defeat and the looming reality of captivity, God had given Jeremiah a small glimpse of what was to come. He had instructed Jeremiah to buy a field. In essence, He was asking Jeremiah to invest in the future of Israel. It was a case of insider trading, because God knew something Jeremiah could not have known. God had already given Jeremiah a heads up about what was to come. “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:10-11 ESV). But now God wanted Jeremiah to have some personal stock in the reality of that promise. He wanted Jeremiah to put his money where his mouth had been and invest in the future of Israel, based on nothing more than the promise of God.

That seems to be how God works with us so often. He had told Noah to build an ark and fill it with animals, when there wasn’t even enough water to float a boat anywhere on the planet at that time. He asked Abram to leave his homeland and head to an unknown destination, all based on what had to sound to Abram like an impossible dream. God had David anointed the next king of Israel, but then allowed him to spend the next years of his life running from Saul, the current king and resident madman. Jesus chose His twelve disciples, told them that He was going to establish His kingdom on earth, and then they had to stand by and watch as He was crucified on a Roman cross. The promises of God don’t always appear as we might expect them. They don’t always work out according to our timeline or in the manner we might prefer. But faith is about trusting God. The author of Hebrews describes it this way: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV). Assurance and conviction in the unseen and, as yet, unfulfilled. It is a determined belief in the reality of what has yet to take place. God was asking Jeremiah to put shoe leather to his faith and some cash behind his conviction. All based on nothing more than the word of God.

And as soon as Jeremiah finished his prayer, God would respond with a rhetorical question: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:26 ESV). In a way, He was asking Jeremiah, “Don’t you trust me?” He knew that this was all a lot for Jeremiah to take in, so He gave Jeremiah some further assurances. “Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Jeremiah 32:37-38 ESV). He let Jeremiah know that His word concerning the punishment of Judah was be fulfilled, but that would not be the last word regarding their fate. He had more in store. He had a timeline and a plan in place that would assure their restoration to the land. And God would keep that plan perfectly and faithfully.

Sometimes all we have are the promises of God, and they can appear vague and distant to us. We may not fully understand the nature of those promises or understand how God is going to bring them about. But He asks us to trust Him. He asks us to have assurance and conviction, based on nothing more than His character and reputation. God told Jeremiah, “Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them” (Jeremiah 32:42 ESV). He had kept His word regarding the coming destruction of Judah, so why would He not keep His word concerning their future restoration? God doesn’t lie. He doesn’t make promises and not keep them. God had promised to send the Messiah and He did – in the form of His own Son. He has promised eternal life to those who believe in His Son. He has promised to send His Son again. He has promised to restore righteousness to the world. He has promised to put an end to sin, death, sorrow, pain, and suffering. Will we trust Him? Are we willing to invest ourselves in the present based on the future promises of God? Is anything too difficult for our God? Can He bring about what He has promised? Will He do what He has said He will do? Faith operates on the basis of trust and hope in the fact that He can and He will.

And This Is the Thanks I Get?

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And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. And they entered and took possession of it. But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you have made all this disaster come upon them. – Jeremiah 32:22-23 ESV

Jeremiah 32:17-25

Sometimes a little bit of reflection can go a long way. Jeremiah had taken time to look back on Israel’s long relationship with God and had recalled the faithfulness of God. He had remembered all that God had done for them as a people. From the moment He had called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees to the day He had appointed David the king of Israel, God had been there for nation of Israel. He had promised them the land of Canaan and He had made good on that promise. When they had taken possession of the land God had reminded them, “I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant” (Joshua 24:13 ESV). He had done these things, not because they had deserved it or had earned it, but out of His grace and mercy and in order to fulfill His word.

And how had they responded to the kindness of God? With disobedience. In exchange for His unmerited favor and undeserved love, God had simply asked that they treat Him with the dignity and respect He deserved. He expected them to stay faithful to Him alone and worship no other gods beside Him. He gave them laws to follow that would set them apart from all the other nations and protect them from committing sins that could result in their own harm and destruction. But as Jeremiah so sadly recalled, “But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do.” They had returned God’s faithfulness with unfaithfulness. They had repeatedly disobeyed, disrespected and dismissed God, treating Him as irrelevant, replaceable, or even optional in their lives. And now they were about to reap the results of their long history of ingratitude and insubordination. God was not going to tolerate their behavior any longer. 

Sometimes, in our obsession over the grace and mercy of God, we can tend to neglect the doctrine of God’s holiness. We can forget that God is holy in all His ways and cannot tolerate sin. Yes, He is able to offer forgiveness and extend mercy to mankind because of the sacrificial death of His own Son. But Christ’s death did not diminish the seriousness of sin, it simply provided a payment for the penalty. In fact, the death of God’s Son provides us with some idea of just how serious God takes sin. The only payment He could accept that would satisfy His own need for justice and cover the steep price to cover the penalty due for the sins of mankind was the life of His own sinless Son. When we look back at the history of Israel and see God bringing destruction on the people He had chosen as His very own possession, we should be reminded of just how much God hates sin. He couldn’t just overlook it and dismiss it. He couldn’t just say, “Boys will be boys” and act as if it was not that big a deal. Sin was and always will be a bid deal to a holy, righteous God. Sin is an affront to His character. It is rebellion against His sovereign rule. It is a slap in the face of God by the ones He has made and who exist only by His grace and mercy.

As believers, while our sins have been paid for in full by Jesus, that does not give us the right to act as if our sins no longer matter or carry no weight. Paul had to deal with this kind of illogical thinking when he wrote to the Christians in Rome. “Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!” (Romans 6:15 NLT). In fact, Paul had told them, “Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace” (Romans 6:12-14 NLT). As those who had benefited from the grace of God made possible through the death of His own Son, they were to take sin seriously and treat God with the gratitude and respect He deserves by glorifying Him through obedient, righteous living. God’s grace is not a license to sin. It is a gift to be appreciated and treated with great honor and respect. God paid a high price in order for us to enjoy a right relationship with Him. He gave His own Son and made it possible for us to exchange our sin for His righteousness. He died so that we might live. Our sins were the cause of Christ’s death. His death was the cost required for our salvation. Our obedience is the least we could do to express our thankfulness for all that God has done. Our hatred and rejection of sin is a great way to let God know just how much we love and appreciate Him.  

The Value of Reflection.

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You have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and to this day in Israel and among all mankind, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day. You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror. – Jeremiah 32:20-21 ESV

Jeremiah 32:17-25

Looking back can be little more than a nostalgic and idealistic longing for the way things used to be, but it can also be a valuable discipline that provides us with perspective. It was George Santayana who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” His was a somewhat negative outlook, but it reflects the truth that occasional reflection on the past has value for the future. There are lessons to be learned. There are examples to emulate and mistakes to avoid. The old saying that hindsight is 20/20 simply reminds us that the validity or stupidity of a decision is much more clear when looking back than when standing with the choice in front of you. There is value in reflection. We can gain so much insight when we take the time to examine the past and see where we have been. George Bernard Shaw put it this way: “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.”

In his prayer, Jeremiah takes some time to look back. But he is far from nostalgic. He isn’t longing for the good old days. He is reminding himself of the greatness of God. As he stands on the edge of the unknown, with the fall of Jerusalem looming in the future, he reflects on the one things he can count on: God. God had been a constant in the life of Israel for generations. He is the one who had done signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, forcing the pharaoh to release the Israelites after more than 400 years in captivity. But God’s miracles hadn’t ceased there. He had continued to display His power on behalf of the people of God all the way up until that moment in time. God had a reputation for doing great things. But a lot of people had forgotten. They had ceased to remember the past. They were caught up in the present and living with a fear of the future. Overwhelmed with the insecurity of their circumstances, they had either forgotten all about God or had chosen to ignore Him. But Jeremiah was counting on God. He was looking back and reminding himself of just how powerful and personal his God was. This was not the first time the people of Israel had found themselves in a tough spot. They had faced difficult circumstances before, and God had always showed up and come through for them before. Jeremiah knew God was about to bring judgment on the nation of Judah for its stubborn refusal to repent and return to Him. The future didn’t look bright. But in looking back, Jeremiah was able to remind himself of the faithfulness, love, power, and capacity for deliverance of his God.

When we learn to look back, we discover the immutability of God. He is unchanging. He is consistent and highly dependable. You can always rely on Him to act in the same way, day in and day out. He is the same today as He was in the days of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, Paul, and Peter. The difficulties we face are no greater than the ones faced by the people of God in the Old Testament or the believers in the early church. In fact, in so many ways, we have it far easier. And yet, we find ourselves panicking, doubting, worrying, and wondering if our God can handle our problems. We question whether He is strong enough to deliver us from our circumstances. Jeremiah would encourage us to look back. He would remind us that our fear of the future is best faced with a healthy dose of the past. We may not know what God is going to do, but we can remember what He has already done. We can’t always know what tomorrow holds, but we can know that it’s in good hands because God is in control. He always has been. He always will be. He is consistently, completely reliable. We can count on Him. So when we face the unknown, we simply need to turn around and take a look in the rear view mirror and see where we’ve been and how God has been there with us all along the way. His presence is sometimes best seen in retrospect. His love for us ofter becomes more clear to us upon reflection. Looking back can be a healthy exercise for the child of God. Remembering what He has done can go a long way in helping us trust Him for what He is doing to do. There is value in reflection.


Nothing Is Too Hard For God.

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Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds. – Jeremiah 32:17-19 ESV

Jeremiah 32:17-25

The armies of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon were besieging the gates of Jerusalem. Everything Jeremiah had been warning the people of Judah would happen is about to take place. The end is in sight. Jeremiah had been placed under arrest by King Zedekiah because he didn’t like the tone or content of his message. It seems that the king thought that by locking Jeremiah up he could alter the inevitable. But God’s will was going to be done. Jeremiah had simply shared the word of the Lord. “Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall capture it; Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye. And he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I visit him, declares the Lord. Though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed’” (Jeremiah 32:3-5 ESV).

In the midst of all this chaos and confusion, and with the Babylonians poised to take possession of the land of Judah, Jeremiah received a personal word from the Lord telling him to buy a piece of property. As crazy as it may have sounded, Jeremiah did what the Lord instructed him to do, because God had given him the assurance, “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land” (Jeremiah 32:15 ESV). Based on the promise of God and in spite of what he knew was about to happen, Jeremiah obeyed. He bought the land and he put the deeds in an earthenware jar and buried it in the ground so that it would last a long time, just as God had instructed him. And then Jeremiah prayed.

“Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.” Things may have appeared bleak and despairing from Jeremiah’s perspective, but he knew that God had it all under control. The same God who had created the entire universe would have no problem handling the Babylonian situation. In fact, it was all His doing. He had sent King Nebuchadnezzar and his troops to besiege and conquer the land of Judah, taking the people captive. And He would fulfill His promise to restore them to the land because nothing is too difficult for him. Jeremiah acknowledged that God had shown unbelievable love for and patience toward the people of Judah for generations. But the consistent rebellion of the people and their constant sinning against Him was about to catch up to them. Their stubbornness and insubordination could be traced back all the way to the generation that He had set free from captivity in Egypt. And their propensity for sin had been passed down from one generation to the next until God had deemed it necessary to put an end to it all. But rather than question the wisdom of God, Jeremiah acknowledged His character. “O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed.” He knew God was in the right. From Jeremiah’s perspective, God was all-wise and all-powerful. He was great and mighty. And as the Lord of hosts, He was ultimately in charge of everything and everyone, including Nebuchadnezzar and his troops. Not only that, Jeremiah knew that God’s “eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.” No matter how unfair things may have appeared to Jeremiah, he knew God was justified in His actions. He was righteous in all His ways.

This simple introduction to Jeremiah’s prayer, when taken in the context of all that was going on, gives us a wonderful reminder to always give greater significance to God’s character than to our circumstances. God never ceases being the Lord of hosts. He is always in control and never lacking in power. Nothing is ever too difficult for Him. We must always balance the knowledge of God’s everlasting love with His divine duty to discipline those He loves. God could not allow the people of Judah to continue to dishonor His name and flaunt their privileged position as His people. Sin always has consequences. But in the midst of it all, Jeremiah kept his eyes focused on God. The eternal, unchanging nature of God was his rock in the middle of the storm. He knew he could count on God to come through in the end and fulfill His promise of future restoration. When everything around us is unstable, we need to rely on the One who is always a rock and firm foundation. When surrounded by uncertainty, we must place our trust in the One who never changes or proves Himself unreliable. Nothing is too hard for Him.

Raw, Real and Relatable.

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Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame? – Jeremiah 20:15-18 ESV

Jeremiah 20:7-18

Jeremiah wraps up his prayer with a lament, and he is shockingly blunt and openly vulnerable in what he has to say. He doesn’t try to sugar coat his feelings or put his words in proper King James English in an attempt to sanitize them for God. He simply says what he is feeling. Sometimes these kinds of open, honest lay-it-all-on-the-line comments in Scripture make us a bit uncomfortable. We feel as if it is somehow wrong or at least disrespectful for anyone to talk like that to God. But it’s interesting to note that it was God who determined to include these kinds of diatribes in the Scriptures. We see them repeatedly in the Psalms and in the book of Job. These expressions of grief, anger and sorrow are there to remind us that the life of God’s children here on this earth can sometimes be difficult. We are, after all, only human. We are weak and prone to feel the effects of the conflict when we attempt to live life on this planet as God’s people. Jeremiah was a chosen instrument of God. He was a faithful servant who was doing exactly what God had called him to do. And his task was difficult. He suffered from feelings of despair, defeat and discouragement. He got lonely. He grew tired of having to be the bearer of bad news all the time. His calls to repentance fell on deaf ears and he never saw anyone respond in a positive way. And it wore on him.

Jeremiah knew he couldn’t curse God. That was a capital offense under the Mosaic law. So was cursing your parents. So Jeremiah cursed the messenger who brought the news of his own birth to his father. How low had Jeremiah gotten? Low enough to regret the day he was born. Here was a man who was serving God each and every day of his life and he had reached the point of wishing he had never seen the light of day. Yes, Jeremiah knew God had made him. He knew God had called him. He also knew he had a job to do and he would continue to do it. But that does not mean that he didn’t have moments when he felt completely exhausted and defeated in what he had to do. Living in obedience to God’s will is not always easy. Like Jeremiah, we live in the midst of a culture that stands opposed to everything for which we stand. We have been called to be salt and light. We sometimes think of salt as a preservative, which it is. But it can also be an irritant. Salt in an open wound can burn and cause great pain. Light exposes darkness. It reveals what is going on in the hidden areas of life. When we live as messengers of God, our words and actions will not always be met with open arms. Our very presence in the culture should cause a certain amount of uncomfortableness and conviction. When we share the good news of salvation available through Jesus Christ, we cannot do so without sharing the bad news regarding sin and the penalty of eternal separation from God. Not everyone wants to hear that message. Not everyone wants to be convicted of their sins.

The apostle Paul told the believers in Galatia, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9 ESV). Why would he have to tell them not to grow weary? Because he knew that they would. It is only natural and normal. Doing good, what God has called us to do, won’t always be welcomed by the world. We will be misunderstood, rejected, ridiculed, and even hated. Jesus told His disciples, “you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22 ESV). Throughout the New Testament we read that we are to endure, persevere, fight the good fight, not grow weary, encourage one another, and stand firm in the faith. Why? Because we will be tempted to do just the opposite. We will have days like Jeremiah did. We will experience moments of despair, doubt and defeat. And when they come, we are free to share them with our God because He loves us. He already knows what we are feeling long before we share it. He can handle our complaints. He can understand our weakness. And He can renew our strength. Jeremiah would go on to complete the task assigned to him by God. He would rebound and recover the motivation to keep on keeping on. His faith would waiver and wain at times, but with the help of God, he would persevere. And so will we. Our moments of weariness and weakness should remind us of our need for God. We cannot live this life on our own. It is impossible for any of us to walk in obedience to God without the help of God. Over time, we will learn to say along with Paul, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV).

Spiritual Schizophrenia.

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Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers. Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! – Jeremiah 20:13-14 ESV

Jeremiah 20:7-18

These two verses couldn’t be more contradictory and confusing. On the one hand, Jeremiah is singing the praises of God for delivering his life from the hands of his enemies. Then it seems as if he has an immediate and dramatic change of heart and curses the day he was born. The most likely explanation is that these two divergent views represent two separate moments in Jeremiah’s life. While they appear to be a single unit, there is actually a gap between verses 13 and 14. What it reveals to us is just how human Jeremiah was. Like us, he could go from delight to despair in a matter of minutes. He could go from praising God at one moment to questioning the very purpose of his existence. The circumstances of life can wreak havoc on the child of God. That’s why it is so dangerous to place our hope and trust in the things of this world. Jeremiah was having to learn the difficult, but invaluable lesson of trusting in God. His calling was not an easy one. Fulfilling the role of a prophet of God was not for the feint of heart. His message was not going to be well-received. He was not going to be popular or get invited to a lot of parties. His was going to be a life of loneliness accompanied by constant rejection and apparent failure. The risk Jeremiah would run would be to let his circumstances dictate his view of God.

It is so easy for us to rejoice in God when things go our way or turn out well. Praise comes easy when we find the circumstances of our lives worthy of praise. When we get a promotion, it’s easy to rejoice and praise God. When we get good news from the doctor, it’s natural to thank God and give Him glory. But if we get looked over for a promotion or receive a less-than-satisfactory report from the doctor, we can find it difficult to muster up the motivation to give God thanks. It is so easy to see God in the midst of blessing. But He becomes far more difficult to comprehend when our circumstances take a turn for the worse. Difficulty can make God seem distant. The presence of trials can make us question the presence of God. But He is there. In the best of times and in the worst of times. God is not a fair-weather friend. He had promised to be with Jeremiah through thick and thin. “I am with you to save you and deliver you” (Jeremiah 15:20 ESV). God had not told Jeremiah that it was going to be easy. In fact, He had told Jeremiah that the people would reject both he and his message. He would face opposition. He would encounter persecution along the way. But God would be there every step of the way.

When difficulty shows up in our lives, it is normal and natural to wonder what is going on. Nobody likes trials in their life. But as children of God we must always remember that our God loves us and cares for us greatly. He has not promised us a trouble-free life. In fact, as children of God, we have been placed smack dab in the middle of a very difficult situation. We have been given an assignment by God to live distinctively and differently all the while being surrounded by spiritual darkness. Paul put it this way: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14-15 ESV). It’s difficult to be lights in the darkness. It’s hard to keep from being overwhelmed by those who hate what we stand for and reject the message we have been told to share. We can easily find ourselves experiencing spiritual schizophrenia, moving from the heights of glory to the depths of despair, in the blink of an eye. All it takes is a setback, a disappointment, a trial or a temporary trouble in our life, and we can go from praise to pessimism in a heart beat.

But when those occasions occur, we must go back to the truth. We must remind ourselves of the nature of our God and the promise of His calling. We belong to Him. He loves us greatly and has promised to never leave us or forsake us. He has given us His Spirit. He has provided us with His Word. He has secured our eternal future through the sacrifice of His Son. The troubles and trials of life are real. They are difficult to understand and endure. But as Paul said, “our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (2 Corinthians 4:17 NLT). We have to keep an eternal perspective. This life is temporary and all the trials and troubles we face in it are nothing compared with the incredible future God has in store for us. He is even using the difficulties of this life to mold us into the likeness of His Son. Yes, that’s hard to see sometimes. It can seem so unfair and far from fun. But God’s agenda for our lives involves our holiness, not our happiness. He is in the perfecting business. His desire is to make us increasingly dependent upon Him so He can reveal His power on behalf of us. So no matter what is happening around us or to us, we must always remind ourselves to think about what God is doing in us.

Committed to God.

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But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause. – Jeremiah 20:11-12 ESV

Jeremiah 20:7-18

Jeremiah was facing some tough opposition. His own people refused to listen to his call to repentance and warning of coming destruction. He had face rejection, ridicule and even physical violence at the hands of those he was attempting to save. And yet, this shouldn’t have been surprising to Jeremiah, because God had forewarned him. “‘will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless’” (Jeremiah 15:20-21 ESV). And it was to this earlier promise from God that Jeremiah returned. God had said that He would be with Jeremiah to save and deliver him. God had promised to deliver him out of the hand of the ruthless. The Hebrew word for “ruthless” is the same word Jeremiah used to describe God. It can mean “terrible one, mighty, or strong”. The NET Bible translates it as “awe-inspiring warrior” when used of God. Jeremiah’s opponents were terrible, violent and ruthless when it came to their treatment of him. But his God was going to put the, pardon the pun, dread of God in them. They would be greatly shamed and would not succeed. While Jeremiah was going through a temporary state of disgrace and dishonor, theirs would be everlasting.

In the midst of all his difficulties, Jeremiah was calling upon the Lord of hosts – literally, Yahweh of Armies. It is a shortened version of the title, Yahweh the God of Armies, which occurs five times in the book of Jeremiah. The abbreviated version occurs 77 times. This reference to God has to do with His sovereignty as King and creator. He not only leads the armies of heaven, but the army of Israel and the armies of the nations of the world, which He uses as He sees fit. It is to the Lord of hosts that Jeremiah appeals. He calls out to the one who rules over all and who knows all. Jeremiah recognizes that God knows his heart and the hearts of his opponents. God can see what is going on and can easily ascertain who is right and who is wrong. Jeremiah simply asks God to do the right thing and save him as He has promised to do.

In spite of all he was going through, Jeremiah has committed himself to God. The Hebrew word Jeremiah used was galah and it can mean “to make naked or lay bare”. Jeremiah had, in essence, exposed himself, making himself vulnerable on behalf of God. He had been so committed to God’s call and cause that he had been willing to suffer abuse and rejection. He had put it all on the line for God. Now he was asking God to avenge him, to justify his suffering by validating his message. Jeremiah had been faithful to do what God had called him to do. He wanted God to be faithful and do what He had promised to do. “I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless” (Jeremiah 15:21 ESV).

When we stand for the truth of God, we will face opposition, and not just from the world. Sometimes our own brothers and sisters in Christ will stand against us or misunderstand us. But it is always essential that we make sure the cause for which we stand is God’s and not our own. We must never make the mistake of causing dissension and strife among the people of God based on our own opinion or agenda. Jeremiah was committed to God’s cause, not his own. He was speaking the words of God, not men. The agenda he followed was God’s. It can be so easy for us to replace God’s words with our own. We can end up causing disruption in the body of Christ, not because we are speaking truth, but because we are sharing our opinion and promoting our own agenda. The apostle Paul told the believers in Corinth, “When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths” (1 Corinthians 2:13 NLT). His words were from God. We must always make sure that what we say is Spirit-inspired, biblically based and God-ordained. The cause to which we commit ourselves must be God’s, not our own. Because when we speak God’s word, we will always have God’s backing. When we commit to His cause, He will commit Himself to our care.