You have to be at the end of yourself to believe in God and yet talk to Him this way. Can you even imagine raising your fist to God and saying, "You have deceived me"??? Jeremiah had done everything that God had asked of him ... he had been true to the journey to which he had been called. Yet what was his reward? A life of misery and anguish, pain and disappointment. He should not have been so surprised because from the day God called him, he had been warned that the nation would turn against him. His reward for faithfulness to God was ridicule, mockery, insults and reproach "all day long." Jeremiah was mad at God because he did not think God had come through for him.
For Jeremiah, following God was proving more of a curse than a blessing. Nothing seemed to go his way. Wouldn't it be fascinating to have all our contemporary teachers/preachers on the prosperity gospel interact with Jeremiah today? Would Jeremiah even believe they were talking about the same God??? Would he have a crisis of faith and wonder if somehow he had missed his calling? Would he have become so embittered toward the God of Israel that he would have recanted his faith and become a follower of the God of America? We use the name of the same God, but boy does He look very different. Jeremiah was following the real God, and what he was experiencing was real life in God. Still ahead of him were attempts on his life, imprisonment, and the indignation of being thrown into a cistern, just to name a few of the experiences to come. He would by then be well prepared to write the poetic literature known as Lamentations.
Jeremiah's life reminds us that even when the beginning point and the final conclusion are certain, the middle can be full of turbulence and instability. Jeremiah's journey began with God's description of His intimate involvement in his life. Before he was formed in the womb, he was known by God. Before he was born, he was set apart, chosen by God for unique and divine purposes. Without even knowing the details, Jeremiah was overwhelmed by God's invitation. His response was one of confessing his own inadequacy and acknowledging his fear. Yet God was unmoved and instructed Jeremiah, "You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you" [Jer. 1:7-8]. Not only was his beginning shaped by the finger of God, but he had the promise that in the end he would prevail. He later reinforced that as he unfolded the difficulty of the journey ahead of him. God promised Jeremiah, "They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you" [Jer. 1:19].
It would be easy to misunderstand these words from God to mean that in every conflict and in every difficulty God would provide an instantaneous victory and cause for celebration. It is not too difficult to see why Jeremiah felt as if God had deceived him. Jeremiah seized his divine moment, but had not fully understood the implications of such a decision. To move with God is not to find the way of escape from the hardships of life. Divine moments are not portals into a world untouched by hardship.
The certainty that God has called us and the confidence that He will work His victory in our lives are not guarantees of a safe and secure journey. We can draw inspiration from Jeremiah in that he refused to relinquish the gift that God had given him. Even in his moment of weakness, Jeremiah emerged as a man who must do what is right regardless of personal consequence. Not all of us are called to Jeremiah's experience, but we are all called to his level of commitment.
We need to explore this experience if we are going to seriously consider embarking on a divine journey. If we misunderstand the essence of divine moments, we might find ourselves too fainthearted to fully achieve God's ultimate goals for our lives. If all we are looking for is a quick fix for either boredom or hardship, then this is surely not the way. To seize divine moments, we must greatly treasure our invitation to join God. These moments can be fully grasped only when one moment with God is worth more to us than an eternity without Him.
When Jesus told Peter that in his old age, he would be tied and bound and taken to where he did not want to go, he responded to this prophesy of his death with the timeless question, "What about John?" I love Peter more than any of the other disciples primarily because he seems the most real to me. Or at least the most like me. What he was really thinking was ... I don't mind suffering on Your behalf, Lord, as long as everyone else has to suffer as well. But if we were the only ones called to suffer, would we still follow Him??? That is the question each of our souls must process and ultimately answer.
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