Jeremiah 31:21-22a – Losing the Landmarks

21
“Set up signposts,
Make landmarks;
Set your heart toward the highway,
The way in which you went.
Turn back, O virgin of Israel,
Turn back to these your cities.
22
How long will you gad about,
O you backsliding daughter? Jeremiah 31:21-22a, New King James Version

In his novel The Rookie, Jerry Jenkins tells the story of a major-league project through the eyes of the prodigy's mother. Her shepherding, scrimping foresight toward the future she sees for him is contrasted with the family of his father, who has departed from the picture. His father also had major-league talent, she notes, and the accompanying windfall of a signing bonus that could have changed the trajectory of his father's family of origin. Instead, she looks back mystified on the poor family's decision to blow that money is a rare consolation before returning to hardscrabble life.

I wonder if God discerned something similar in the hearts of the children of Ephraim as Jeremiah 31:22 began. He foretells a national and tribal windfall accomplished purely by His grace. The people seem to fully grasp His goodness. From the sentries with their healthy skepticism, to the virgin daughters and their exuberance, to the priests shedding their professional detachment, the culture is alight with celebration. Even those deprived of children by the exile are wooed by the specific consolation of the Lord.

Even when macro trends are on the uptick, even when hearts rooted in Him seem the healthiest, though, He urges circumspection. This is, after all, the God Who inspires the caution, be careful when you stand, lest you fall. The Wonderful, Counselor urges that the nation and her individual citizens consider their ways at the point of apogee.

Set the signposts, make landmarks He urges parentally. His charges are to teach their hearts to appreciate God's goodness in a deeper way than simply drifting through circumstantial celebration. He Who looks on the heart while man is satisfied with outward indicators knows the difference between true celebration and gadding about, between the confluence of wonder and worship and one season's consolation's in heathen hedonism.

Those who see themselves as losers, recycle the narrative that they are destined to suffer capriciously at the next turn of random events, they never quite internalize the goodness of God to the extent James MacDonald intones in Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling, asking pointedly, “Whose story captured my soul?” 

 

By the grace of God there are many insistence is an Jeremiah 31:21-22 checkups before the ultimate accountability MacDonald has in mind. Still, there is a cumulative effect which means we must consider today's reactions soberly. How we react to the next events to be revealed will be largely determined by the preceding answer to that question. The same sun that softens the wax, dictates Elton Trueblood, hardens the clay.

What is the sun of God's most manifest goodness doing to your heart? Know the signs, and mark the signposts. Make landmarks. Put down alters like the patriarchs did to remind their distractible hearts of the Source of all goodness. 

Altars of stone may not speak to our hearts in this age when, for the Christian, Jesus has been the once-and-for-all perfect sacrifice, but our wayward spirits still need instruction in remediation in gladness from the right Source and for the right reasons. 

The Holy Spirit is our Tutor Who will finish what He starts, yes, but He would use such Jeremiah 31:21-22 wise and disciplined resolution. We also guard our hearts as the wellspring of life.

Excise, then, the drifting doubter within. "Sincere pessimism," says Chesterton in Orthodoxy, "is the unpardonable sin." God is good beyond all debate. Fully engage this moment as we, with Paul, learn what it is to celebrate Christ in our times of plenty and our times of need.

Pilgrims on Earth not yet fully experiencing citizenship in Heaven, we have something of the exile's experience, but this longing need not constantly drag down our spirits, need not rationalize indulgence for indulgence's sake.

We are heirs to a Kingdom, whatever the current precinct in which He is shaping our character for such an eternal enterprise. Our sincere celebration is never far from bubbling to the surface, nor far from infusing the core of our deepest beliefs.


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