Jeremiah 29:1-2 – The Far-Flung Flock

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remainder of the elders who were carried away captive—to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. Jeremiah 29:1-2, New King James Version

Jeremiah knows the power of the loaded moment. He has confronted face-to-face. He has at the Lord's direction engage props to help him maximize his chances of convicting the heart of his Temple audience. He is a man of charismatic intensity.

Yet, as the shift to Jeremiah 29:1-2 shows, he knows more than one note. He doesn't walk by sight, simply unloading on whomever is in front of his nose. Serving a global, even universal, God, his spirit, intercessory, instructing, roves farther than the visible horizon. Even by letter, he will convey the scope of the Gospel he serves. His ink, no less than his person, will follow his conviction that his God is at work everywhere.

Should written verbiage be supposed to compete with the dissident sights and sounds of Babylonian exile? Not unless faith empower them, but Jeremiah sends on. Should the scroll, on animated, pierce the ego armor of the religious leadership which has been impervious to Jeremiah's personal confrontation? Not unless by faith, but Jeremiah sends on. God inhabits His Word, Jeremiah knows, and by it He can separate joint and marrow, soul and spirit.

What of us? Do we walk, and work, and minister by faith, or by sight? Do we turn our spirits solely to that which our bodies bump into on a daily basis? Or, do we search our hearts for a bigger, wider purpose which God might employ by His grace.

Jeremiah's scroll needed to travel over hazards by a live human, but God in His grace has given us tools of intercession and instruction that would have dazzled the prophet. Shall we do less? Shall we maintain purposeful indifference to what God is doing outside of our Jerusalem when He might use His gracious outworking in our lives to benefit those we have related to in past chapters.

Our writing, even by text or email, can bridge differences of space and station no less than prayer can. For what country would you pray and, in time, search for contacts? How much frustration, how many broken yokes in our personal dealings would be forgotten if we, like Paul physically confined, would redeem our time and transcend physical boundaries with a sense of God's wider work and entreaties to be a part of it in whatever ways faith and technology make possible?



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