Devotional on Jeremiah

2009 – Endicott Arm, AK

The Lord looking at things in the long view
Jeremiah 29: When you come looking for me, you’ll find me.
This is another of those messages from Jeremiah that’s addressed, not to his contemporaries, but to their children and grandchildren. Destruction is coming and exile is a sure thing. However, the Lord looks beyond the current generation to the next and to the one after that. His plan is a grand plan. Things have been gradually disintegrating for many years now as the nation God picked as his own has turned away from him. Through the coming hard times the Lord intends to rectify that. The current generation might not want to know him but the Lord’s putting events into motion that will impact future generations in such a way that they’ll return to the faith of their ancestors. His promise is a wonderful example of the grace of God. Even as he warns them of some soon coming radical surgery he promises them that he hasn’t permanently written them off. When the nation has been humbled and is ready to seek God it will find that he’s been there all along. I’m tempted here to respond to this passage from my Western point of view. That is, to personalize this and apply it as an example how God deals with individuals. However, I can’t help but think of the original cultural setting of this passage. I wonder if the Lord intends to humble my nation, not for the sake of the current generation but for those that follow. I’m not Jeremiah and I’m not a gloom and doom prophet. Still, I find it disturbing to be reminded that sometimes God’s so committed to a nation that he allows a generation to go through terrible times in an effort to reach the next one.
Take Away: It’s important to remember that the Lord will, when necessary, do radical surgery for the good of the patient.

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