Jeremiah 24:5 – Acknowledged in Opprobrium
“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans. Jeremiah 24:5, New King James Version
On September 1, 2017, I was uprooted. For seven years previous to that, I had been helping to match community college students with courses of study and career paths thereafter. In that seemingly ideal capacity, I brought home armloads of inspirational anecdotes. On that day, I brought home the news that the path I thought to be perpetual slammed to a conspicuous dead end.
That I had the double indignity of explaining this occurrence to my friends in the private sector. Surely they thought government employment was unlosable. I had heard it characterized as a safe harbor for the unambitious, and now I did not have a safe harbor. Cringing for a series of subsequent, if unintentional, blows, I sent out the news.
I got back a shower of specific encouragement. One friend Rick in the upper reaches of Human Resources at a bank that is one of the city's major employers, a friend who says he can tell minutes into an interview who has a growth mentality and who does not, delivered a verdict decidedly different than my fleeting hope to simply shield myself from shame.
He said, "You are an All-Star free-agent." He challenged me that this was an opportunity to consider more options than I might have from my safe perch and staid identity.
This was a Jeremiah 24:5 moment. Like those facing impending exile to whom Jeremiah is speaking, I had been moved against my will from a setting in which I felt secure, less able to cope, logic would dictate, because of the stigma associated with being acted upon rather than acting on my own agency. Yet, God tells those of us facing such a change and resigned to men's pity or derision because we obviously weren't in control of it that we are ACKNOWLEDGED by Him.
God uproots and replants by sovereign grace for our good, He says. He shows in these initially unwelcome transitions, as He did through my friend, that we are more than the function we previously served in His economy, that by changing our circumstances He will prove that He is not dependent upon the previous means by which He provided for us and through which He got glory. In our very disorientation and questions in what seems to be a foreign land, He will show Himself fully conversant in how to continue His story in our lives.
I wanted to quote Rick's exact words, to reflect back on that moment, that text, as the 21st century equivalent of Jacob's altar in his own Genesis relocation. God was there, and I knew it not. To save space on an antiquated iPhone 6s as life and job search wore on, I deleted old texts. I believe we do the same in the RAM of our hearts and minds. Rarely do we build altars. Rarely do we stop and reflect where God showed Himself at a critical moment so we can count Him as our source instead of the circumstances He engineers. When the next crisis comes, then, we have a sort of identity amnesia because we have forgotten the words of affirmation He spoke over us and those He may have used to speak them.
Blessedly, the words of affirmation He speaks over His own while we are in transit from one situation to another are so plentiful in Scripture that even the most cursory attempts to apply its teachings to our own hearts forces re-relishing this Truth. Blessedly, He places us in community, and, sometimes contrary to 21st-century transience into lasting relationships with people who can help us gain perspective on the flood of circumstances that seem ever new, ever daunting.
My friendship with Rick is just such a constant. Years later, in a regular Saturday morning Bible study of which he is a part, he mentioned the power of my testimony, not once I arrived at a new job title, which I did by God's grace, but in the exile between such respectable stations. He extolled the faith I exhibited during a stage I would have left on the editing room floor were I constructing my own life highlight film. He was used, once again, to acknowledge what and whom God acknowledged.
Whom can we acknowledge as His, as a reflection of His glory, in a way that will outlast both technology and job titles? Whom can we remind of His faithfulness in life's particulars when the disorientation of exile might be paramount?
On September 1, 2017, I was uprooted. For seven years previous to that, I had been helping to match community college students with courses of study and career paths thereafter. In that seemingly ideal capacity, I brought home armloads of inspirational anecdotes. On that day, I brought home the news that the path I thought to be perpetual slammed to a conspicuous dead end.
That I had the double indignity of explaining this occurrence to my friends in the private sector. Surely they thought government employment was unlosable. I had heard it characterized as a safe harbor for the unambitious, and now I did not have a safe harbor. Cringing for a series of subsequent, if unintentional, blows, I sent out the news.
I got back a shower of specific encouragement. One friend Rick in the upper reaches of Human Resources at a bank that is one of the city's major employers, a friend who says he can tell minutes into an interview who has a growth mentality and who does not, delivered a verdict decidedly different than my fleeting hope to simply shield myself from shame.
He said, "You are an All-Star free-agent." He challenged me that this was an opportunity to consider more options than I might have from my safe perch and staid identity.
This was a Jeremiah 24:5 moment. Like those facing impending exile to whom Jeremiah is speaking, I had been moved against my will from a setting in which I felt secure, less able to cope, logic would dictate, because of the stigma associated with being acted upon rather than acting on my own agency. Yet, God tells those of us facing such a change and resigned to men's pity or derision because we obviously weren't in control of it that we are ACKNOWLEDGED by Him.
God uproots and replants by sovereign grace for our good, He says. He shows in these initially unwelcome transitions, as He did through my friend, that we are more than the function we previously served in His economy, that by changing our circumstances He will prove that He is not dependent upon the previous means by which He provided for us and through which He got glory. In our very disorientation and questions in what seems to be a foreign land, He will show Himself fully conversant in how to continue His story in our lives.
I wanted to quote Rick's exact words, to reflect back on that moment, that text, as the 21st century equivalent of Jacob's altar in his own Genesis relocation. God was there, and I knew it not. To save space on an antiquated iPhone 6s as life and job search wore on, I deleted old texts. I believe we do the same in the RAM of our hearts and minds. Rarely do we build altars. Rarely do we stop and reflect where God showed Himself at a critical moment so we can count Him as our source instead of the circumstances He engineers. When the next crisis comes, then, we have a sort of identity amnesia because we have forgotten the words of affirmation He spoke over us and those He may have used to speak them.
Blessedly, the words of affirmation He speaks over His own while we are in transit from one situation to another are so plentiful in Scripture that even the most cursory attempts to apply its teachings to our own hearts forces re-relishing this Truth. Blessedly, He places us in community, and, sometimes contrary to 21st-century transience into lasting relationships with people who can help us gain perspective on the flood of circumstances that seem ever new, ever daunting.
My friendship with Rick is just such a constant. Years later, in a regular Saturday morning Bible study of which he is a part, he mentioned the power of my testimony, not once I arrived at a new job title, which I did by God's grace, but in the exile between such respectable stations. He extolled the faith I exhibited during a stage I would have left on the editing room floor were I constructing my own life highlight film. He was used, once again, to acknowledge what and whom God acknowledged.
Whom can we acknowledge as His, as a reflection of His glory, in a way that will outlast both technology and job titles? Whom can we remind of His faithfulness in life's particulars when the disorientation of exile might be paramount?
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