Jeremiah 18:12b – Imprisoned By Our Plans
And they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.” Jeremiah 18:12, New King James Version
"What strikes me," an ER physician tells The New Yorker's Ryka Galchen on the constant triage of care in these times straining our medical system, "is the deterioration of what's normal."
Jeremiah 18:12 speaks to the same phenomenon with respect to the sin virus more deadly than anything biological we face. Convicted, perhaps in sincerity, the cultural chorus finally responds to Jeremiah's confrontation of sinful assumptions.
Collectively, they bewail hopelessness, but the next words are telling. We will walk, they resign, according to our own PLANS. That is, the degraded normal of estrangement from God and of temporary, fleeting satisfaction elsewhere has become so intertwined with cultural expectations that people's self-talk includes it as part of a plan.
Perhaps no individual or group was this candid with Jeremiah. Perhaps God is allowing the fullness, or one might say emptiness, of their hearts to speak in Scripture, that they, and we, might examine the validity of a spiraling thought process. We have been there, even if we would not spell out the words in black-and-white.
Confronted and convicted, we have reasoned, if we can stretch the word to cover this, that we are already so far into a sin habit that we will fulfill our "plan" to complete it. We will sink to the level of our gloomy assumptions because we still can't wrap our minds around grace enough to do otherwise. We are with Switchfoot in "Yet," aware that we are, "losing ground and gaining speed."
Yet, the very awareness, the beginning glimmers of self-examination, indicates some hope – even if we can't fully articulate it. There's a point at which the awakening spirit at least realizes congealed affections toward the things of this world.
The people in Jeremiah 18:12 are there, even if they are more conscious of their accelerating fall. They call their continuing demonstration of depravity a plan, but they also admit that they are following the dictates of evil within them.
By the grace of God, the season in which the Bible admits that sin is fun has passed. This people, and we with them, begin to realize we are being played, and cruelly so. We are following through unpredictable responses when our buttons are pushed by habit and culture rather than out of any remaining enthusiasm.
God has brought us near rock-bottom, that we might see, and say, that's true satisfaction is only to be found in Him. Any normal we once knew, we are admitting, is no longer a floor to stand on. Any agreements we made with sin and with the spiritual forces behind it, we are admitting, are just an opening for us to be manipulated and miserable.
We can look up, then, with the New Testament epistle, for our redemption is near. Or, having been brought through this harrowing and disheartening process, we can have hope for our neighbor at precisely the time when he or she come in a Jeremiah 18:12 phase, has the least hope within himself or herself.
Addiction is letting go, and grace is at the threshold. Having been through these dark withdrawals, we can narrate the process, and insist on hope. We can listen without scolding and put the night of darkness in context. Joy comes, we know from experience, in the morning.
"What strikes me," an ER physician tells The New Yorker's Ryka Galchen on the constant triage of care in these times straining our medical system, "is the deterioration of what's normal."
Jeremiah 18:12 speaks to the same phenomenon with respect to the sin virus more deadly than anything biological we face. Convicted, perhaps in sincerity, the cultural chorus finally responds to Jeremiah's confrontation of sinful assumptions.
Collectively, they bewail hopelessness, but the next words are telling. We will walk, they resign, according to our own PLANS. That is, the degraded normal of estrangement from God and of temporary, fleeting satisfaction elsewhere has become so intertwined with cultural expectations that people's self-talk includes it as part of a plan.
Perhaps no individual or group was this candid with Jeremiah. Perhaps God is allowing the fullness, or one might say emptiness, of their hearts to speak in Scripture, that they, and we, might examine the validity of a spiraling thought process. We have been there, even if we would not spell out the words in black-and-white.
Confronted and convicted, we have reasoned, if we can stretch the word to cover this, that we are already so far into a sin habit that we will fulfill our "plan" to complete it. We will sink to the level of our gloomy assumptions because we still can't wrap our minds around grace enough to do otherwise. We are with Switchfoot in "Yet," aware that we are, "losing ground and gaining speed."
Yet, the very awareness, the beginning glimmers of self-examination, indicates some hope – even if we can't fully articulate it. There's a point at which the awakening spirit at least realizes congealed affections toward the things of this world.
The people in Jeremiah 18:12 are there, even if they are more conscious of their accelerating fall. They call their continuing demonstration of depravity a plan, but they also admit that they are following the dictates of evil within them.
By the grace of God, the season in which the Bible admits that sin is fun has passed. This people, and we with them, begin to realize we are being played, and cruelly so. We are following through unpredictable responses when our buttons are pushed by habit and culture rather than out of any remaining enthusiasm.
God has brought us near rock-bottom, that we might see, and say, that's true satisfaction is only to be found in Him. Any normal we once knew, we are admitting, is no longer a floor to stand on. Any agreements we made with sin and with the spiritual forces behind it, we are admitting, are just an opening for us to be manipulated and miserable.
We can look up, then, with the New Testament epistle, for our redemption is near. Or, having been brought through this harrowing and disheartening process, we can have hope for our neighbor at precisely the time when he or she come in a Jeremiah 18:12 phase, has the least hope within himself or herself.
Addiction is letting go, and grace is at the threshold. Having been through these dark withdrawals, we can narrate the process, and insist on hope. We can listen without scolding and put the night of darkness in context. Joy comes, we know from experience, in the morning.
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