Jeremiah 29:29-32 – Made to Matter

29 Now Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet. 30 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying: 31 Send to all those in captivity, saying, Thus says the Lord concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I have not sent him, and he has caused you to trust in a lie— 32 therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his family: he shall not have anyone to dwell among this people, nor shall he see the good that I will do for My people, says the Lord, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord. Jeremiah 29:29-32, New King James Version

"Envy stems," discerns Tim Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, "from preoccupation with the present."

God as discerner of hearts knows this, and touches the connection collectively in Jeremiah 29:29-32. He made us to matter, created us from Eden forward with a desire for dominion. We want to know we made an impact, left a legacy.

The fall of man, though, significantly narrows our vision and saps our patience. We want to see and count that impact NOW. To get short-term results, we are willing to tap into people's basest passions, to, as Richard Rohr put it in Falling Upward, confirm them at their own level of immaturity rather than challenge any potential following to aspire to be more like Christ.

Knowing rebellion lurks in the heart of men, that we all deal with a dissonance between what we are experiencing and what we want, we, in effect, disciple that as we find it in men rather than confront it. We, as God charges in Deuteronomy 29:32, take up Shemaiah's ancient, manipulative trade and teach rebellion.

In confronting this tendency, God Who equates rebellion with witchcraft in the Law reaches to the root desire. He says that because Shemaiah has counted it worthwhile to stir up a transient following, He will be denied a real legacy. Because he was satisfied with trusting his own demagoguery to accumulate followers in the here and now, God Who preserves genuine impact from age to age will see that Shemaiah is not remembered.

Which would we rather have? Would we be satisfied with the ego boost when others look to us for snide comments, when our sarcasm on social media is click bait? Would we be man's ideal, to use the language of 1 Timothy 4:12, in setting ourselves up against the knowledge of God? Or, will we spend our days in moment-by-moment confirmations that our faith is in God, that it is He Who will deem worthy what is remembered of our efforts on Earth?

He may grant physical progeny to remember us after we are gone, and He may not. The means by which He grants a sense of impact are up to Him. However He chooses to mark the time we spent on Earth looking to Him in faith, His reckoning will surely be more satisfying than the momentary following we could find by pointing out what's wrong with His running of His world.

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