Jeremiah

It's pretty bad. When I started this trek, I was gung ho, knocking off a couple books in a short amount of time. Now it seems to take me a month to get up the nerve to tackle a single book. My goal is to get to (& through!) Lamentations before the end of January.

I finished Jeremiah yesterday morning before I went to work (I started it Sunday). I was caught a bit off guard once I got into it, as Jeremiah jumps all over the place as he is telling his story, moving backwards and forwards in time, sort of like a Tarantino movie. Nonetheless, God was using Jeremiah to try and get a message through the skulls of His people. Same message -- sin, I punish; worship me, I bless. The rub here is that King Manessah messed it up so bad, that Israel was doomed to exile, even though they had a few more Kings left in them (15:4).

God chose Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to take down Judah. Other prophets of Israel were preaching peace and properity, but Jeremiah regularly disagreed with them, saying they had not received their message from God, though often he wished they had. Jeremiah told the people that it was God's will to send them to Babylon. Later on, God says that he will punish Babylon for what they did to Judah, which, as you can imagine, boggles me, since God had Babylon do the work. Some of the stuff He does really does not make sense to me, but it's all rooted in His deep love for and promise to His people.

And the promise here is the same as I've read before: 29:10-14 -- "After Babylonia has been the strongest nation for seventy years, I will be kind and bring you back to Jerusalem, just as I have promised. I will bless you with a future filled with hope--a future of success, not of suffering. You will turn back to me and ask for help, and I will answer your prayers. You will worship me with all your heart, and I will be with you and accept your worship. Then I will gather you from all the nations where I scattered you, and you will return to Jerusalem."

God goes on to say in the next few paragraphs that His people take comfort in the fact that He is sending prophets even in Babylon to share His message, but that he did that in their own land and they did not listen. I've always thought Jeremiah was a book of judgement, but it's really a testament of God's patience (you fall down, you get up - 8:4). He geniunely believes that His people will one day get it, in spite of their track record. If it was me, I would have given up. But God is the definition of patience.

And in the midst of it all, I see another message - orphans, widows and the poor - how they are treated are indicative a society's standing with God. If a society takes care of them, then God favours them; if not, then not.

Yesterday a new goverment was elected in Canada. I've heard many opinions by some people in the Christian world that we need to get Christians in public office and "take our country back for God." I'm not sure I agree - I think we need to be careful that we don't abdicate our responsibility as a church to the government. However, Canada has pretty good programs and systems to help the poor, widows and orphans. It's not great, but it's pretty good. I'd like to think that all is not lost and that God still has some patience left in Him for us.