DAY 302

FOLLOWING GOD…REQUIRES SOME TOUGHNESS

Jeremiah 15, 16 & 17 and 2 Timothy 2

There is a version of religion out in the air, a version of Christianity that we breathe in…which is false. It is the version that goes something like, “Believe in God, follow Jesus, and you will live happily ever after.” It is out there and we drink it in, it seeps into our pores, and we seem to naturally want to believe that our lives are like a Disney movie.

Yet the data, the data from Jeremiah, the data from 2 Timothy, and the data from our own lives, points to a different conclusion. It seems that the “free will” we have been given lead us to all sorts of wrong behaviors. I have written about this before. This gift of free will allows us to be courageous, to be compassionate, and to love. It also allows us to make so many poor choices.

We are all living with the collective impact of good and bad choices the world before us has made. If you think about the world’s history as containing chapters, then the chapter that Jeremiah finds himself living in is one of the darkest. It is the chapter where the cumulative effect of Israel/Judah’s rejection of God is coming home. We have read it before, but in 15:6 we read it again: “You have rejected me” cries God.

Which brings me to the “toughness” required to follow God: Jeremiah writes in 15:16 that at first God’s words were a joy, sweet you might say. Now they have become bitter. God’s reaction: no release for Jeremiah from his job. God tells Jeremiah that he will make Jeremiah as “bronze” against those who oppose him. The underlying statement in that sentence is “those who oppose.” In other words Jeremiah will continue to be opposed. God does not say, “Oh Jeremiah I’m sorry it is hard, you do not have to do this anymore.” No, God says be faithful and that requires toughness.

Toughness also means being deeply rooted in God’s story of ultimate redemption for the entire world. God even reminds us of it in 16:14 where—before they have been dragged off to exile—he says that one day he will bring them back. You have to be a bit strong, strong in faith, and strong in behavior to live into that promise.

That is what Paul is writing about in 2 Timothy today. He uses language of “sharing in suffering,” “being a good soldier,” and “training hard as an athlete.” It is what Jeremiah says in 17:5…in classic Jeremiah language… “Cursed (yup cursed) is the man who trusts in man and makes his own flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” So my brothers and sisters, may we be deeply planted in God, and be tough.