This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord... The army of the king of Babylon was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace of Judah. Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’ “Then, just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’ “I knew that this was the word of the Lord; so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver. I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales. I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, as well as the unsealed copy— and I gave this deed to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed and of all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard. “In their presence I gave Baruch these instructions: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Take these documents, both the sealed and unsealed copies of the deed of purchase, and put them in a clay jar so they will last a long time. For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’ --Jeremiah 32:1-2, 6-15
Ever get tired of constant obstacles? We wait in line at the DMV, are put on hold 20 minutes by customer service, and then sit three times through a red light. We have a tough time remaining relaxed until our turn finally comes around. It would be bad enough on its own, but the extra time reminds us of the 2 dozen other things that really could have been done earlier, or of the major crisis at home that we still haven’t figured out.
Well, there’s nothing that can be done about DMVs or customer service lines but wouldn’t it be nice to rid ourselves of at least one nuisance by the touch of a button? Imagine. You’re in the middle of an awful day and running late for an appointment. The light in front of you turns from yellow to red. Instead of having to sit around praying for the light to hurry and change, you simply punch a little button and give yourself permission to go.
Unfortunately, such traffic light switchers are a bad idea. Interfering with traffic in an intersection is illegal in most states, and the random switching of signals is bound to create significant safety problems. Oh, well...
Israelites found themselves in the place where things were definitely not going their way. The army of the king of Babylon has surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and the people within the walls are desperate for relief. Some want God to remove the Babylonian army, some want to take up arms and fight, while still others want to find a way to escape. The army of Babylon is a huge, glaring red light — and it doesn’t look like it is ever going to change.
Finally, the word of the Lord comes to the prophet Jeremiah, but it doesn’t tell him how to build a traffic light switcher. Instead, God orders Jeremiah to buy a field in Anathoth, the town of his birth, outside the city of Jerusalem. The Lord promises Jeremiah that the light is going to change, but not for a long, long time. God wants the prophet to wait patiently for the green light, wait through the conquest of Jerusalem and the devastation of Anathoth, wait until that time when the exile in Babylon is over and people will be able to return and repopulate the land. “For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ,” reports Jeremiah: “Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’” (32:15).
How bizarre: to buy a piece of land in a town that is about to be destroyed by an invading army. About like buying oceanfront property as a hurricane is ready to hit.The traffic light may be red, but God tells Jeremiah that he doesn't have to feel stuck — he can use that time of captivity to take an action that shows his complete faith in God.
So Jeremiah buys the field at Anathoth, and carefully weighs out the money — 17 shekels of silver. He signs the deed, seals it, gets the proper witnesses, and then orders that the papers be put in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long, long time (vv. 9-14). Jeremiah is prepared to wait as long as it takes. He trusts that God is going to create a better future for the people of Israel, but it’s not going to happen as quickly as the people would like.
I know that people would love to hear me talk about a formula of prayer or a few verses of scripture that would erase and immediately change our lives when we find ourselves trapped and hurting. I have some good news and bad news: The bad news? there is no such thing as a traffic light switcher in life. Sometimes we just have to live in and through the difficult times
How some farmers in Alabama felt. They were accustomed to planting one crop every year – cotton. They would plow as much ground as they could and plant their crop. Year after year they lived by cotton. Then one year, the dreaded boll weevil devastated whole area. The next year, farmers mortgaged homes, planted cotton, and hoped for a good harvest, but the boll weevil destroyed the whole crop as it began to grow. Only a few farms survived.
People of Israel had come to realize what we know all to well, in life, there is no magic button we can push that makes all the trouble and pain to go away. Jeremiah has shown them that they will have to endure this for the long haul.
That's the bad news; where is the good news? We may not have a traffic light clicker for life, but we do have a God who gives us the strength, the patience, and the grace to out wait any obstacle.
And what about those farmers? The few who survived decided to experiment the third year by planting something they’d never planted before—peanuts. Those peanuts were so hearty and the markets so strong that the third year profits paid off the debts of the previous two. The farmers planted peanuts from then on and prospered greatly.
Because God is alive and God is with us, we always have hope, even in the face of the worst life brings. And I don’t just mean this as a bunch of feel good platitudes. What is the worst that we can face and fear when God is with us? Death? God has conquered death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…If we die, we are with Christ forever. What is the worst that we have to fear and face? the pain and discomfort that is caused to us by ourselves and others, most often emotional, that leaves us hurt and wounded. It is in those times that the Apostle Paul speaks to us when he says, “we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
God is always working to turn evil into good, and death into new life. Over the course of our lives, we will certainly experience pain and suffering, but punishment and defeat are never the last words in our story. “I will rejoice in doing good to them,” God promises, as he looks to the future, “and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul” (v. 41).
The parable is told of an old dog that fell into a farmer's well. After assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the dog but decided that neither the dog nor the well were worth the trouble of saving. Instead he planned to bury the old dog in the well and put him out of his misery.
When the farmer began shoveling, initially the old dog was hysterical. But as the farmer continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck him. It dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back he should shake it off and step up. but he did not know if he could…
This he did blow after blow. "Shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up!" he repeated to encourage himself.
No matter how painful the blows or how distressing the situation seemed, the old dog fought panic and just kept shaking it off and stepping up! It was not long before the dog, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well. What seemed as though it would bury him actually benefited him—all because of the way he handled his adversity.
It is natural for us to want to control our destinies, which is why a high-tech traffic light switcher is bound to be so attractive to us. But as people of faith, we are challenged to allow God to shape our futures with us, and this requires waiting for God’s guidance with open hearts and receptive minds. “To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life,” said the Christian writer Henri J. M. Nouwen. “The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.”
The challenge before us is to find a way to live within life’s difficult moments. This means letting go of our craving for control. Instead, we can trust in what God is doing, move ahead with faith and persistence, and gain a clearer picture of the future that is being prepared for us.
This road is not easy, but the Companion can carry us forever.
Grace and Peace,
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