All the verses of the Bible are for us. There are not any that we should tear out and throw away, ignore, or disobey. However, not every book of the Bible is written as wisdom/advice/instruction. It can be extrapolated as such...with understanding. But the poetry and "love story" in Song of Solomon does not deal directly with justice matters as, say, the Sermon on the Mount does. And the Proverbs can be applied a little easier than First and Second Chronicles, even though they were both "written for our instruction."
It is with this understand, or "light" that I view the famous passage in Jeremiah 29. Odds are, you can finish this sentence/scripture:
"'...For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord..."
How it starts is this:
"This is what the Lord says:
'When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill My gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.'"
This is a cool verse that shows the Lord's heart towards us (that is is towards us and not against us), but it gives us additional insight if we study the context that it was spoken in. God's people were disobedient to Him, which God then allowed its enemies to scatter God's people and carry them off into exile. There was suffering. This was not fun. But God told them to settle down, give their kids in marriage, set roots, plant stuff and eat it. He was kind of telling them to settle in, cause it was going to be 70 years before He took them out. He was keeping His Word and also giving them perspective. I know I need that kind of perspective sometimes, because I tend to look at things in an "all or nothing" and in the "immediate" time...
In chapter 33, we see another oft-quoted verse (3):
"This is what the Lord says, He Who made the earth, the Lord Who formed it and established it -- the Lord is His Name: 'Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'"
He revealed to Jeremiah that He would fill the houses and royal palaces of Judah with dead bodies; but He also revealed that He would heal His people. He reiterated that His Word and His covenants would come to pass (most notably of which was a messianic promise about a king from the lineage of David). It's almost like He was saying, "It's going to get worse before it gets better, but it is going to get better." That's not a "refrigerator magnet" type thought, but one of truth. I hope that when I hear the Word of the Lord that I will recognize it. There are certainly a lot of sentimental "refrigerator magnet" words that comfort and tickle my itching ears; and I don't want to make the mistake I alluded to last week of assuming that any "word of judgment must be the Lord's Word," because that is just resting on formulas and history to tell me what God is going to say, rather than listening and hearing.
What would it be like today if the USA was taken off into captivity? This is hard to fathom, and I wonder if Israel ever had the "confidence" that we do that we're safe from attack and being overtaken. That would not be cool. I would resist such an enemy. I'd be curious if allowed to speak with God's people up in Heaven who were leading and living in the nation of Israel at the beginning of the Babylonian exile. What were they thinking? Did they fight? Were there righteous men who had not bowed their knees to false gods and/or disobeyed the Lord and grieved Him? If so, what did they do? Did the accept their deaths, loss, captivity as the Lord's chastising? Or is that something that's only seen in hindsight? I'm curious how they wrestled with that.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at August 8, 2005 09:26 AMI realized I grabbed the wrong reference, in my excitement after reading the entries. Why I responded where I did, I'm not to sure. What I meant to say was: Jer. 1:5, as well as Ps. 139: 13-16. God's will is sometimes a lifelong search, if I try to find it myself instead of seeking it from Him. To know that He knows me so well, and still I attempt to take matters into my own hands, blows my mind! I could take a long time to convey my thoughts here, but I will rather say my prayer is, 23-24, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there be any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (NIV) Dorn
I agree,
and I have seen more than a few people really wrestly with the notion of "finding" God's will for our lives.
I honestly believe that (compared to our living and active relationship with Him) He does not care a rip about what we do with our lives (whether to be a doctor or missionary or librarian, kind of "will of God" thing...). Know what I mean?
Knowing Him and following His lead, wherever that may take us (and (gasp) sometimes we might make our own decisions on where to go/what to do... I think God gave us brains, the ability to reason, and the freedom to make choices. We have to live with those choices, but not having a "clear" or "supernatural" direction is not always God's way of telling us to STOP. Sometimes we need to proceed without clear "direction," and He will make the "journey" with us. Now that is kind of trippy, eh?
Posted by: Doug at August 8, 2005 11:38 PM