…continued from last week’s post: On our present sufferings, part 4…
I think we Christians sometimes have a bad habit of strengthening our faith only at times when God does exactly what we want, when we want, and how we want. We struggle with doubt when God’s plans run contrary to our own. Guilty. In other words, a God who lines up perfectly with our worldview, desires, and hopes is a God worthy of our faith. We don’t quite want to believe in a God who has a plan that might run contrary to those things. I’m rich, famous, and healthy: “Yay, God!” I lose out on a promotion or can’t get more than 1,000 Instagram followers: “Clearly, there is no God.”
We Christians sure do love Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,” but we too often ignore Jeremiah 29:10 where this “prosperity” is to be preceded by 70 years of brutal exile. Not 70 minutes or 70 hours or 70 days. 70 years of exile. Also, we too often ignore subsequent chapters where God’s prophet who penned Jeremiah 29:11 was A) contradicted and slandered by other prophets (chapter 29), B) imprisoned (chapter 32), C) hunted down by a king who was so enraged by Jeremiah’s words that he set his words on fire (chapter 36); and, D) tossed in a well and left for dead (chapter 38). Perhaps we should add fine print to all our Jeremiah 29:11 coffee mugs and t-shirts: *but first 70 years of exile and possibly being tossed into a cistern and left for dead.
There’s a famous story largely attributed to Winston Churchill (likely fictional or of another origin…but that’s beside the point). He asked a lady sitting next to him if she would be willing to sleep with him for some exorbitant amount of money (I think it was 10 million pounds or so in the version I heard). The lady responded, “Well, I suppose…”
Churchill replied, “Well then, would you sleep with me for 5 pounds?”
The lady replied, exasperated, “What kind of woman do you think I am?!”
To which Churchill replied, “Madam, we’ve already established what kind of woman you are. Now, we’re just haggling over the price.”
I know, I know. That’s a rather odd story to think about as we walk through grief and suffering; but I think about it often. Here’s why: in a way, I think we treat God that way sometimes. We believe in him if 1,000 things go our way; but we seriously doubt God’s existence if nothing goes our way…or if only one or two things go our way. Why? We’ve already established that we’re our own gods. We’re just haggling over the number of things that need to go wrong in our lives to confirm it.
I wonder how many of us would keep our faith if faced with Jeremiah’s life—a life filled with slander, imprisonment, governmental retaliation at “free speech”, and tortuous things like being tossed in a well and left for dead. I wonder how many of us would keep our faith if we lived our lives under the 70 years of Jeremiah 29:10 rather than the prosperity of Jeremiah 29:11. Would we still believe there’s a beautiful redemption story for all of this mess? Or, would we give up hope? In other words, would our hope remain in this life only; or, would we find hope in this life and the next?
“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
1 Corinthians 15:19
To be continued next week…
Keep going Josh - we need to hear it. Thank you so much. We need truth
Great article Josh! May I call it a devotional? I’m preaching tomorrow for Palm Sunday, and I think this fits well with that. The crowds loved Jesus while he performed miracles, and there was the expectation that he would fulfill all their hopes for an earthly kingdom and messiah. Yet they went from shouting “Hosannah” to “Crucify him” as soon as it was clear that Jesus was calling them to something else, something harder. Lee up the great work, and know that you and your family are in prayers. I think of you all often.