Jeremiah 14:22 – Irreducible Gratitude
Are there any among the idols of the nations that can cause rain?
Or can the heavens give showers?
Are You not He, O Lord our God?
Therefore we will wait for You,
Since You have made all these.
“In any miracle," traces Matthew Lee Anderson in Earthen Vessels, "chase the causation back far enough and eventually you'll find the marvelous goodness of God's creation.”
This persevering second look is what distinguishes the repentant remnant of Jeremiah 14:22. The contrast is telling. These whose cause Jeremiah takes up in his own words are surrounded by an obtuse culture that does not look beyond the status quo. Flip back to Jeremiah 13:12, and we see the worldlings indifference to the beginning of Jeremiah's rebuke because they believe that of course, the wine will keep flowing.
How quickly do we take up the chorus that the sweetest and most developed of God's blessings that we experience, those are what we continue to deserve? We don't chase back farther to the goodness expressed so much sooner than the vintage we crave.
Accustomed to the wine, or whatever is the refined drug of choice of our idolatry, we never express thanks for the basic elements God keeps in place even when the vulnerable grades don't come to fruition. We have forgotten to thank Him for the rain.
There are aspects of God's blessing so basic that we only think of them when they are missing. When they are, our re-acquaintance instantly becomes bitterness. Assert a prerogative to stop the rain, as God does in the beginning of Jeremiah 14, and are entitled flesh seeks to educate God on what we need and deserve. Long accustomed to assumptions, the alarm that we are dependent on God for something as elemental as water jolts us with the reality of our vulnerability. The great mass of men recoil and revolt.
Yet, by grace even in a culture awash in either gluttony or grievances, there are some more moved by the spirit of Jeremiah 14:22. They take their needs to God in worshipful humility and gratitude. Recognizing Him for Who He is, the same realization Peter does in the New Testament, "Where else can we go?"
Pervasive as the idols are, the penitent pleading in Jeremiah 14:22 acknowledge that they don't provide rain – and they never have. Magnificent as the heavens seem, remote and powerful in themselves, even they don't operate without God's ongoing involvement.
In the same culture, then, that chases meaning in the next binge, by God's grace the earnestness of our plea to Him can stand out. We suffer from the same vulnerabilities incumbent in a fallen world. We would be just as thirsty in a drought.
Yet, our hope is steadily in Christ's Living Water rather than with the rising or falling of rainfall totals. While at the slightest change in the conditions needed for human flourishing, the world cries out in the self-centered angst of Jeremiah 14 3, the heart of worship can proclaim even via a parched throat.
Or can the heavens give showers?
Are You not He, O Lord our God?
Therefore we will wait for You,
Since You have made all these.
“In any miracle," traces Matthew Lee Anderson in Earthen Vessels, "chase the causation back far enough and eventually you'll find the marvelous goodness of God's creation.”
This persevering second look is what distinguishes the repentant remnant of Jeremiah 14:22. The contrast is telling. These whose cause Jeremiah takes up in his own words are surrounded by an obtuse culture that does not look beyond the status quo. Flip back to Jeremiah 13:12, and we see the worldlings indifference to the beginning of Jeremiah's rebuke because they believe that of course, the wine will keep flowing.
How quickly do we take up the chorus that the sweetest and most developed of God's blessings that we experience, those are what we continue to deserve? We don't chase back farther to the goodness expressed so much sooner than the vintage we crave.
Accustomed to the wine, or whatever is the refined drug of choice of our idolatry, we never express thanks for the basic elements God keeps in place even when the vulnerable grades don't come to fruition. We have forgotten to thank Him for the rain.
There are aspects of God's blessing so basic that we only think of them when they are missing. When they are, our re-acquaintance instantly becomes bitterness. Assert a prerogative to stop the rain, as God does in the beginning of Jeremiah 14, and are entitled flesh seeks to educate God on what we need and deserve. Long accustomed to assumptions, the alarm that we are dependent on God for something as elemental as water jolts us with the reality of our vulnerability. The great mass of men recoil and revolt.
Yet, by grace even in a culture awash in either gluttony or grievances, there are some more moved by the spirit of Jeremiah 14:22. They take their needs to God in worshipful humility and gratitude. Recognizing Him for Who He is, the same realization Peter does in the New Testament, "Where else can we go?"
Pervasive as the idols are, the penitent pleading in Jeremiah 14:22 acknowledge that they don't provide rain – and they never have. Magnificent as the heavens seem, remote and powerful in themselves, even they don't operate without God's ongoing involvement.
In the same culture, then, that chases meaning in the next binge, by God's grace the earnestness of our plea to Him can stand out. We suffer from the same vulnerabilities incumbent in a fallen world. We would be just as thirsty in a drought.
Yet, our hope is steadily in Christ's Living Water rather than with the rising or falling of rainfall totals. While at the slightest change in the conditions needed for human flourishing, the world cries out in the self-centered angst of Jeremiah 14 3, the heart of worship can proclaim even via a parched throat.
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