Jeremiah 29:14 – Free to Be Bound

I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive. Jeremiah 29:14, New King James Version

On The West Wing, the president's body man Charlie Young, an academic all-star in DC's public schools is on the phone after posting bail when he and Communications Director Toby Ziegler found themselves in a minor scuffle in in an Orange County bar. Charlie is adopting language appropriate for his correctional environment, and Toby comments, "Charlie‘s trying to throw down with the street. It’s kind of a sad sight to see.“

Even so, as Toby and congressional candidate Sam Seabourn continue to discuss current events in the jail lobby, it's Charlie who points out, "At this point, we are in jail voluntarily. So can we go?"

I wonder if many of us as Christ's own have made that transition, the same transition alluded to in Jeremiah 29:14. Our words and behavior are as adaptable to the lowest stereotype of our environment as Charlie's are. His erudition, graciousness, and good humor lapse for a minute after he has been in jail for two and a half hours on a dropped charge. The environment of a world which begrudges the penal aspects of its fallenness, will, in the phrasing of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, die our souls.

We don't, beloved in Christ, always talk like the victorious. Our countenances are sometimes more shaped by two and a half hours amid the reprobate than by the freedom in Christ into which we are to be growing. Jeremiah 29:14 reminds us, as it reminded Jeremiah's original listeners, of the limits of captivity, of our very real transcendence over our flesh's predicament.

Yes, those driven from Judah were captives. They saw their houses burned down along with the Temple they readily associated with well-being in the Lord. This was painful, even for Jeremiah who had been warning against it.

He wrote the book of Lamentations from that place in the Lord honored genuine grief by preserving it for the ages. Any too-quick pivots to the metaphorical lesson will be slowed by that as by the biblical command to weep with those who weep. We follow after, after all, Christ as Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, Who knew restrictions on His freedom, humiliation, even death.

Yet, for both individuals and nations, as David will remind us, and so does Sam on The West Wing at a time of national tragedy, grief lasts through the night, but joy comes in the morning. We do not grieve, as Paul who knew his share of suffering says, as those who have no hope. We are not wholesale chameleon, that our entire life message should change with our environment. Where we are now, we are at the discretion of One Who can strike our bonds at a moment's notice.

The WILL has been established. What we WILL be as Christians relying completely on Christ's righteousness is as certain as the promises of Scripture. Ought we not fix our eyes, and hearts, and speech on that frequently, with a healthy regard for how readily we start conforming to the judged environment around us?

Time in His Word will restore our perspective, as we are reminded by the likes of Jeremiah that even life's penalty boxes, for those who walk by faith, serve a persevering purpose. Planned in advance, as Jeremiah's frequent warnings attest, they are not random, that we should abase ourselves in jailhouse cynicism. They are ordained, and even while still confined we can sing like Paul and Silas.

We WILL BE delivered in the good timing of the One we serve. This reality colors our testimony in contrast to drab circumstances, just correction and unjust retribution. When our song contrasts with our circumstances, this is when it stands out. This is when, as with Paul and Silas who were soon joined in singing by the hardened criminals around them, our attitude in times of confinement and suffering shows through and serves a godly purpose.

We await God's call to better, higher, to more obvious reflection of His glory than we know now. We might experience a little of that in these very bodies, in the earthly life to which we are called. Whatever deliverance God grants, we want to walk fully in it as a testimony to His power. We don't want to, as Charlie put it, be in jail voluntarily just because the bars served God's purpose for a time.

If they aren't opened by His discretion, though, our spirits don't have to be confined. They can focus on the reality of His sovereignty to which Jeremiah 29:14 points. At His Word, we will be brought, sought, carried into more of Him as surely as life has previously taken us by the hands into what we didn't want to experience. We look up, for our redemption draws nigh.