A Fire in My Bones

Have you ever had a job that ‘you hated’?  While I was at ACC, I sold Bibles for the Southwestern Company for five summers.  My first summer, I was in Lafayette, Indiana and I HATED MY JOB.  Some mornings, I cried as I drove to my first door-knocking assignment.

          

Jeremiah sometimes hated his job as God’s spokesman.  Jeremiah has been called ‘the weeping prophet’.  Some of his words from Lamentations help us understand this designation.

Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

Lamentations 3:19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and  the gall. 20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Lamentations 3:48 Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed.  49 My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief.

           

The reason Jeremiah ‘wept’ was his task from God was burdensome.  Listen to these words from Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 15:10 Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends!  I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.                                                                                                                                                   

Jeremiah 20:14 Cursed be the day I was born!  May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! 15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, “A child is born to you—a son!” 16 May that man be like the towns the Lord overthrew without pity.  May he hear wailing in the morning, a battle cry at noon. 17 For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever. 18 Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow    and to end my days in shame?

           

Jeremiah wept and he expressed his frustration because God gave him a burdensome task.  His own people cursed him and persecuted him.  So, why didn’t Jeremiah quit?  If it was so hard, why didn’t he say ‘I resign, that’s it!’  His own answer is found in Jeremiah 20:9, If I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.  

There was an inner necessity, a drivenness, a compulsion in Jeremiah.  He must do what God called him to do.

Do you have that kind of compulsion for serving Christ?  Is there an inner necessity,  a drivenness within you that causes you to be faithful in serving Jesus?

Prayer:  God, help us to be strong like Jeremiah.  Help us to stand for you when it is hard.  Help us be faithful when the going gets tough.  Through Jesus we pray. 

Terry Brown

Abilene, Texas