Possessed by God

Jeremiah 20

Jeremiah spends a whole day in stocks because of his prophecying of doom -- and he comes out of it doing more of the same, continuing to announce the destruction that the Lord is going to bring on Judah using the nation of Babylon,even to the point of changing the name of the priest to 'terror on every side' as an illustration. Then he complains to the Lord that the Lord has trapped him in this role which causes him to be ridiculed and mocked, and you see how difficult it is for Jeremiah, what a weight and stress it is to be doing this task, how much he wants to escape and yet how much he is urged on by his own inner compulsion and calling to continue to do the work of the Lord.

8 Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.

9 But if I say, "I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,"
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.

And


18 Why did I ever come out of the womb
to see trouble and sorrow
and to end my days in shame?


It is not always pleasant -- or perhaps it is not even usually pleasant -- to do the work of the Lord. Jeremiah is speaking the words that God has given him, and it is thankless, miserable, agonizing, isolating. Yet he persists. He persists because he must; God has put it in him to do it.

I think there is a similarity between this experience of Jeremiah and in how Vic felt during this whole bad scene of the past couple years at church, when he has been the lone voice being pressured to change his mind about what he thought was true and right. And in the aftermath (it may even be wrong to use the word aftermath yet), Vic is profoundly effected and discouraged. And I am aware that I have begun operating shallowly with regard to the whole thing. I want to feel like it's over, so I want to act like it's over, to expect that Vic now just needs to get up and walk, so to speak. In my impatience that things aren't 'back to normal' at church, I have been less of a support to Vic and more reserved and surface-y with him than I should be. God, thank you for showing me this.

'Back to normal' is not the goal. 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done' is.

Funny how I was criticizing the content of our prayers at prayer meeting yesterday. I can liken my desire for so-called normalcy with Vic at church to our prayers at prayer meeting about the economic downturn. We want what we want. We want our own comfort, and that is more at the forefront of our mind than the real issues of sin involved with our nation. We find it uncomfortable to look deeper -- at the real issues -- and we just want things to be back to the way we like it.

Lord, help me to re-engage with what is truly going on here. What are you doing? What are you continuing to do? Is Vic's assurance of salvation, which we are meeting to pray about, the only issue that we should be praying about or are there other issues that are really the ones that should be of concern?