Week 10/17/2010--Go Where I Send YOU.
Have you ever had to say something to someone that you knew would be hurtful, but you also knew that it had to be told to them? Have you ever been in a position where you knew what the right thing to do or say was and you also knew that it might end the relationship? This is important stuff, Jeremiah knew, and he did what most of do, we make excuses, try to spin it in a way that somehow just obscures it more. God called Jeremiah to be a prophet. Jeremiah made excuses. But God was trying to get Jeremiah’s attention.
Is God trying to get your attention, and you are just so planted in what is happening in your world that you don’t hear the call? Are you so busy making a life for yourself that you haven’t heard God calling you? Are you so convinced that you see things the way they really are that you can’t see what is right in front of you?
God says before all this, before you were even born, before God formed you in the womb, he had already called you. You, Jeremiah. You are the one I want. What are you doing? Go where I send you.
God confronts us, all the time, using things we are familiar with, using people we are familiar with, do we have the courage to recognize the voice? We can simply ignore it, we can simply argue with it, we can simply dismiss it. But it would behoove us, to listen first, to seek first to understand what is being said, to perhaps presume good intentions first, then ask the question is there deeper truth in this statement? Is there truth in this voice? What is my part in this? Am I being responsible? Who is the Jeremiah for you today? Yesterday? The day before? Is the voice filled with hate or love? Calling to account, is difficult for anyone. Why do you discount that God would find it difficult and troublesome to call you to account?
The messenger is important, but only because the message is more important! God is calling you, will you respond? O’ God I pray it will be so.
Greg