Jeremiah 12:1-2 – Prayer's Healthy Housekeeping
1
Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You;
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
2
You have planted them, yes, they have taken root;
They grow, yes, they bear fruit.
You are near in their mouth
But far from their mind.
"Lord," confesses Tim Keller in Songs of Jesus, "how poorly I pray! Either I pray vaguely and halfheartedly or I pray heatedly, accusingly telling you exactly what you HAVE to do. Teach me to pray with discipline and passion and yet also contentment with your love and will. Then through my prayers you will do much good in the world and in my heart."
Such a design on God's part may well connect the chapters of Jeremiah's life and Jeremiah's book as we go from chapter 11 to 12. Jeremiah has shown himself to be an admirably habitual intercessor. He responds to the signs of the times and to God's stirrings with prayer on behalf of his people and with faithful declaration to them. For the moment, though, by the sovereign direction of God, his ministering machinery is down for maintenance. God told him to stop praying for this people.
In this pause, God seems to take apart that great, pleading heart to clean each of its pieces, to re-grind and polish the glass through which Jeremiah sees the world around him. It is by this patient, painstaking process that Jeremiah can begin to perceive his own heart. He who must have felt the weight of national events on his shoulders can pause, breathe, and admit, Lord, I'm jealous.
He does that compellingly in Jeremiah 12:1-2. We as his heirs, I'm afraid, ignore properly self-focused instances of confession for so long that when we unleash them, they become sticky, indulgent affairs. Not Jeremiah. He starts his soul's checklist by declaring to it and to us the righteousness of God. With his heart, as it were, on bypass for vital repairs, he knows whereby he stands. Any hearing he gets, he confesses for the ages, is by grace. He is but shades from confessing explicitly he is covered by the righteousness of Christ.
With this sense, like Abraham and Job, he has the temerity and wherewithal to question specifically. Inventory, defragmentation shows this is what is on my mind. This is smudging my glass. This is what keeps me from resting completely in Your peace, Lord, why wait for Your next message or Your next move in this great, national drama. The wicked prosper, and I don't like it. Your covenant people seem to be held to a higher standard, and I don't think it's fair.
Like Abraham were not corrected for bargaining with God, Jeremiah seems to go further, emboldened. He confesses that from his myopic perspective, it seems like God is not taking in the whole picture. It seems to Jeremiah that the prophet can take in more of people's true motivation than the prophet's ageless inspiration can. He is afraid, he confesses for us with admirable candor, that his Lord is being taken in by a ruse when people use religion's magic words.
Do we hesitate to turn healthy prayer inward like this, toward undermining the idols and unholy angers of our hearts? Only, I think, when God in His sovereignty interrupts on our usual patterns. Only He can bring us to the point where we confess with Jeremy Camp in "Take Just a Little Time," "I'm tired of all my selfish tragedies."
Only He can show us, and this most often over time, when our prayers are directed toward the same cardboard villains, and when the hero therein begins to look a lot like us and our tribe rather than His not-quite-predictable glory.
When He does, when God renews prayer by redirecting it, it is our grateful response to reconsider. It is our humble response to admit how little we see, and how much we assume. It is our healing response to admit our hurts, and our preoccupation with them. It is our confident response to know that we will be renewed completely.
Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You;
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
2
You have planted them, yes, they have taken root;
They grow, yes, they bear fruit.
You are near in their mouth
But far from their mind.
"Lord," confesses Tim Keller in Songs of Jesus, "how poorly I pray! Either I pray vaguely and halfheartedly or I pray heatedly, accusingly telling you exactly what you HAVE to do. Teach me to pray with discipline and passion and yet also contentment with your love and will. Then through my prayers you will do much good in the world and in my heart."
Such a design on God's part may well connect the chapters of Jeremiah's life and Jeremiah's book as we go from chapter 11 to 12. Jeremiah has shown himself to be an admirably habitual intercessor. He responds to the signs of the times and to God's stirrings with prayer on behalf of his people and with faithful declaration to them. For the moment, though, by the sovereign direction of God, his ministering machinery is down for maintenance. God told him to stop praying for this people.
In this pause, God seems to take apart that great, pleading heart to clean each of its pieces, to re-grind and polish the glass through which Jeremiah sees the world around him. It is by this patient, painstaking process that Jeremiah can begin to perceive his own heart. He who must have felt the weight of national events on his shoulders can pause, breathe, and admit, Lord, I'm jealous.
He does that compellingly in Jeremiah 12:1-2. We as his heirs, I'm afraid, ignore properly self-focused instances of confession for so long that when we unleash them, they become sticky, indulgent affairs. Not Jeremiah. He starts his soul's checklist by declaring to it and to us the righteousness of God. With his heart, as it were, on bypass for vital repairs, he knows whereby he stands. Any hearing he gets, he confesses for the ages, is by grace. He is but shades from confessing explicitly he is covered by the righteousness of Christ.
With this sense, like Abraham and Job, he has the temerity and wherewithal to question specifically. Inventory, defragmentation shows this is what is on my mind. This is smudging my glass. This is what keeps me from resting completely in Your peace, Lord, why wait for Your next message or Your next move in this great, national drama. The wicked prosper, and I don't like it. Your covenant people seem to be held to a higher standard, and I don't think it's fair.
Like Abraham were not corrected for bargaining with God, Jeremiah seems to go further, emboldened. He confesses that from his myopic perspective, it seems like God is not taking in the whole picture. It seems to Jeremiah that the prophet can take in more of people's true motivation than the prophet's ageless inspiration can. He is afraid, he confesses for us with admirable candor, that his Lord is being taken in by a ruse when people use religion's magic words.
Do we hesitate to turn healthy prayer inward like this, toward undermining the idols and unholy angers of our hearts? Only, I think, when God in His sovereignty interrupts on our usual patterns. Only He can bring us to the point where we confess with Jeremy Camp in "Take Just a Little Time," "I'm tired of all my selfish tragedies."
Only He can show us, and this most often over time, when our prayers are directed toward the same cardboard villains, and when the hero therein begins to look a lot like us and our tribe rather than His not-quite-predictable glory.
When He does, when God renews prayer by redirecting it, it is our grateful response to reconsider. It is our humble response to admit how little we see, and how much we assume. It is our healing response to admit our hurts, and our preoccupation with them. It is our confident response to know that we will be renewed completely.
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