Jeremiah 13:17 – Pricked for the Prideful

But if you will not hear it,
My soul will weep in secret for your pride;
My eyes will weep bitterly
And run down with tears,
Because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.

In TH White's The Sword and the Stone, the boy Wart, later Arthur, is an unwanted emissary dismissed by those he grows up around. Still, showing a discerning intercessor's heart, he pleads with Merlin that though Kay is tormenting him, Kay be allowed to join Wart on magical adventures. "He has to be proud," Wart explains to his teacher sympathetically, "because he's frightened."

As God's messenger to a proud people, Jeremiah reveals in 13:17 much the same sympathetic heart. Jeremiah has been told from the beginning of his ministry to anticipate rejection. He has been told to set his face like flint and continue in the Lord's work despite the fact that his people will not hear. Yet, by a remarkable work of grace, the resolve on his face does not harden his heart toward those who will reject his Word.

Anticipating yet another calcified layer of this rejection, Jeremiah orders his feelings by faith. He sees through the pride his people will display, the air of breezy competence and confidence, sees past his own hurt, and resolves to continue in intercession.

His tears won't be in bitterness for himself as rejected spiritual leader. Like Moses before him and Christ after him, Jeremiah will grieve for his sometime flock. He anticipates his own pride for the trap that it is.

Can we, then, messengers and ongoing works of the same God, plan for the initial sting of rejection and the proclivity to take it personally? After all, we are presented with that likelihood not only by Jeremiah's ancient example but by the sure words of our Savior. He told us that if His adversaries rejected Him, they would certainly reject us.

Given the privilege, then, of game-planning against our flesh, we can, by grace, turn Lady Macbeth's resolve to nobler purposes and screw our courage to the sticking place to insist on the glory of God. Even when we know relationships will hurt, we can take that pain to God.

We can unload our own indignation along with our haunted sense that others are missing God's best for them. We can bring these griefs directly to the throne, and leave them there. Only then are we ready for what He will next say to and through us.

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