Skip to main content

Nothing

             “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”  (Jeremiah 32:17)

The context for this verse is Jeremiah’s purchase of a field. He gave the deeds to Baruch, son of Neriah, his scriber, who put it in a clay pot to preserve it. After this, Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, and some of its best and brightest are taken to Babylon. Israel was left in ruins, and would remain so for 70 years. Jeremiah had been predicting the fate of Israel. I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable about Israel’s history.  I know that Babylonian exiles returned to Israel, but whether Jeremiah or Baruch did is another matter.

Regardless, what is evident from the context is that Jeremiah made arrangements for two steps in the future. He knew hard times were coming, but they would end, and he prepared with the end of the hard times in mind (at God’s direction.) The hard times were an apocalypse for the nation of Israel, but it would end, and Israel would once more be Israel. It is with this in mind that Jeremiah praised God.

It’s often suggested that we should live in the present, but Jeremiah was living two steps into the future and praising God because God could and would get someone to that second step. He was investing in the future, and he trusted God to arrange it. We need to be careful before we follow this pattern. Jeremiah was told that Israel would return. He didn’t make the purchase to manipulate God into doing something. He made the purchase believing what God had told him. And he made it without expecting to see any good come of it for himself.

I’m not suggesting any drama here, but when facing changes or challenges, I wonder if we should start looking two steps ahead and investing our faith in God, for whom nothing is too hard.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more