Reflection on the Book of Jeremiah
As I was studying the book of Jeremiah this week, I learned that Jeremiah’s main message was to uproot, tear down, destroy and overthrow Judah’s pillars of the faith as they need to be built up and replanted. Judgment would definitely come to Judah and they would be restored by the Lord. The Jews would need to go through transformation before they experienced restoration. God promises to raise a righteous person from Judah that will reign with justice and righteousness, bringing eternal salvation to Judah. This is the eternal covenant that God is making with Israel in the midst of judgment to God’s people and to the surrounding nations.
This is a question we had in class. As “modern day prophets”, can we paint this picture of what life with God and life in the new kingdom looks like? How do we embody that and participate now? What does obedience and success in your life look like right now?
“The word of the Lord…”
As I was constantly highlighting “the word of the Lord” in Jeremiah, I learned that he was a prophet that stood in God’s truth and obedience despite all the rejection, humiliation, and mocking that he faced from his own people. He must have felt so misunderstood, lonely, and even to the point that his own friends and family betrayed him because he was walking in such obedience to the Lord. He even wished he had never been born, as the world he faced was in chaos and constant trouble. As I take time to process this question from class, I reflect about my day to day life as a Christian, right now as a missionary. It’s easy to paint a picture on social media of all the good things I can do as a missionary, but in reality, I also have a lot of internal struggles and wrestling with how I should live my life. Being a missionary is not my identity, but just being God’s daughter, choosing His ways, and doing what He calls me to do, right now in this season as I use all of my time for mission work. I know this in my head, but am I living out this identity that God has given me?
Big Shift in Mindset and Habits
This year has been a big year to shift my mindset, evaluate my habits, and what are things that I need to unlearn and learn. I usually have a very optimistic perspective and whenever I face a big struggle, I know it’s something that I’m able to grow through. Sometimes, I also need to accept to face the struggle and sit with my thoughts about the struggle, whether it is a sinful pattern, thoughts, or something that I need God’s light and truth in.
Since truly committing to Christ at the age of 18, I’ve had a very strong conviction that sometimes has pushed away friends and family who are not Christian or are struggling with their faith, or have walked away from God. Maybe I might be perceived as “very religious” or “too good, too innocent”. Maybe they feel judged. Faith is just not a topic they want to talk about or they don’t necessarily think about it. I don’t know. I don’t truly know if they feel this way but I feel it through the distance or the lack of communication and connection. That feeling is difficult sometimes because I often battle with the thought – Do I please them to keep the relationship or do I continue in obedience and mature in my faith? How can I best love them even though they do not have the same faith or worldview as I do? Similar to Jeremiah, I can also often feel left out, left behind, as people pursue this world’s dreams and feel satisfied with worldly desires. Sometimes I also wish I could be content with the world just as other people are. What is it like to choose a world without God? This is where I wrestle with what it means to live in holiness, even though my life may not look the same as some of my old friends and people I’ve encountered in my years of study, ministry, and cross-cultural missions. How can I continue to run the race and walk through the narrow gate, even though it is incredibly difficult to not just give into the desires of this world? What does it mean to live as God’s daughter in abundance, contentment, and living as heaven on earth? The easy way would just be to choose to be comfortable and live a happy life, right? Is a life with Christ worth living for until the day I leave this earth?
Wrestling with These Questions
I will continue to wrestle with these questions. I understand that it is not black and white, and similar to the book of Ecclesiastes, we constantly need to examine, reevaluate, and walk with the Lord. He gives us the space to process and wrestle with questions. At the end, I can only say that I desire to walk in God’s ways and to continue seeking His truth and knowing Him more. This is the journey I have chosen and even though it may feel lonely at times, even though the reality is that I will consistently see meaningful relationships in my life fall away from God and choose the world, I want to continue persistently and actively living out my faith and encouraging others to do the same. Even though they may push me away or find me annoying, I don’t want to deny Christ in my life, because He is the greatest hope and light that I have, and all my life is centered around my relationship with the Lord. I want to hold on to hope that one day, these people will return to Jesus, no matter how long it takes and how many prayers have been prayed. I have so many things I can be thankful for in the abundance of life and joy that He gives me. I may not have all the things I desire in this world, but He has given me more than I could ever imagine.
