Jeremiah 26-29 Nobody wanted to hear what Jeremiah had to say because it was tough love from the Lord.  Other priests and prophets ran around promising peace and goodness and prosperity without admonishing their people to turn from their wickedness.  Tough love is hard.  It hurts to hear that we’ve grieved our parents…how much more it hurts to hear that we’ve grieved our Creator! I had to be tough with my daughter today…but I am ashamed at the way I did so in anger.  We got up early and went to the ice rink so she could practice for tomorrow’s … Continue reading Ears to Hear

Jeremiah 23-25 Words matter to God.  They really do!  Many people know about John 1 — “In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  But God speaks about the proper use of words in Jeremiah 23.  Apparently false prophets were spouting off all sorts of things that the people’s itching ears wanted to hear.  They claimed to be speaking “a prophesy from the Lord,” but the Lord objected so vehemently that he told people to stop saying that phrase altogether: 34 “If any prophet, priest, or anyone else says, ‘I have a … Continue reading In a word

Jeremiah 18-22 Anyone suffering from depression could learn a great deal from Jeremiah.  Jeremiah had a reason to be depressed in that there were people who hated him so much they wanted him dead…if ever an ancient prophet was a “marked” man, Jeremiah was it, and he knew it. In fact, he wrote that he wished he had never been born or that he had been born stillborn. What’s remarkable to me is that Jeremiah didn’t voice his complaints to anyone…except to God.  He did not hold anything back from the One who shapes us like a potter shapes clay. … Continue reading A mentor

Jeremiah 14-17 I am haunted tonight by the face of a woman I saw today.  The temperature outside was 104 degrees according to my car.  As I took my daughter to her ice skating lesson, I saw someone lying on the side of the road in the grass under an oak tree.  Several months ago, my mother-in-law fell on her sidewalk, and several people drove by without stopping to help.  Somehow I felt compelled to check on the welfare of this stranger. I turned the car around and pulled into an adjacent parking lot.  Then I grabbed the cold bottle … Continue reading Courage to do more

Jeremiah 10-13 The best weapon we could ever have is counter-intuitive: praise.  When bad things start to happen, we have a tendency to start whining.  At least I do.  I remember being in trouble as a child because I was whining too much, and in my anguish I wrote a letter to my grandmother (that my mother saved), telling her that I just couldn’t help it.  God must have made me a whiner.  (I think I spelled it winer, which made it even funnier!) I’ve been whining a lot this afternoon because I threw my back out today.  I’ve been … Continue reading Forced to be still