Again and again this week I have looked at a book laying on the table next to me. You see, I know that when I pick it up, I will be challenged and confronted and called by God. So, it lays there. I'm comfortable. Life is good. So, I don't pick up my Bible either. I keep myself busy with the business of ministry, disregarding the matters of the heart and soul and mind.
I go to work.
I come home.
I go to work.
I come home.
A comfortable, easy, appreciated pattern.
Tonight is different. I pick up the book. The opening pages have me turning to Jeremiah 1:4-10, and so it begins. God's call to Jeremiah is not just a command, but a vocation. God's call to Jeremiah leads to Jeremiah's immediate thoughts of inadequacy. God is not daunted. God called Jeremiah from his mother's womb. God has a job to be done, and Jeremiah is going to do it. It is no small task. My study notes say, "The renovation of the community is not a painless affair...The intrusion of the word of God is not a placid or pleasant affair." God intrudes on Jeremiah's life. And, now, God intrudes on mine.
Thank you, God.
Rueben Job says:
"Sometimes I forget that I did not think of God first, love God first, decide to follow God first, or even decide to permit myself to be sent by God. None of this was my idea at all. It all came from God. Even before I was made, God loved me and had already chosen me. How could I be so arrogant as to think it was my idea all along? Perhaps it was and is my desire to be in charge, to be in control of my own destiny, when deep within I know so very well that I am completely dependent upon God for all things." Now, isn't that the truth?
