Jeremiah 31:7 – Scraps into Songs

7 For thus says the Lord:

“Sing with gladness for Jacob,
And shout among the chief of the nations;
Proclaim, give praise, and say,
‘O Lord, save Your people,
The remnant of Israel!’ Jeremiah 31:7, New King James Version

I've always been touched with Reepicheep's outsized valor and outspoken gallantry in CS Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series. When I admitted on social media to such a soft spot undermining my flinty façade, I was surprised by one reaction in particular. My friend Sharon, who knew me most closely decades ago in awkward, post-adolescent formation, said I had always reminded her of Reepicheep.

I saw, and still see, a short body the efficacy of which even in routine matters is addled with cerebral palsy. I know my heart, and there is a lot in it that isn't brave and isn't others centered. Yet, the Lord positioned her to see and to sing, what isn't necessarily evident in life's baser moments.

My friend Nick knows me much closer up. He knows my lapses in concentration. Only the notes he keeps on our conversations allow him to redeem my insights and suggestions from my stream-of-consciousness jumps from one topic to the next. Yet, he told me recently that he likens my discipline in diving into God's Word daily with the expectation to write about it to a running friend's exercise resolved. He aspires, he says, to both.

It pays, sometimes, by God's grace to stop and listen to the chorus. We fear so much the prospect of being entranced by a siren's song, of losing the present opportunity via an entranced ego, that we don't hear what God is saying about us from His view in Glory, and voicing such a rarefied vantage point through fellow, flawed human believers.

Pause, then, to hear the song He inspires in Jeremiah 31:7. He charges His people, Jacob's heirs, to sing with gladness for their forebearer. Gladness isn't close to the first word association objective Bible reader would hang on Jacob. He is guarded. He is resentful. He is suspicious. He is determined to get what he can for himself and to protect it, no matter how much potential joy it costs him. Yet, the progeny God grants him by grace look back on his record and remember him gladly. As he has finished his race by grace, they reflect on him from God's point of view. Any gladness he didn't express, they expressed now.

They also laud a more lasting valuation on what he left behind. At points in Scripture, he sees himself as a fugitive, and he was. Even as God blesses, he sees himself and his family as outnumbered by the world. They need to, he says, get along even with min's violent intentions, lest they be overpowered.

How different, though, is the view God insists that Jacob's heirs express? They are to remember, God inspires, that Jacob's people are but a remnant, leftovers and wanderers compared to Earth's more splendid and solid powers. Yet, in their comparative weakness as states are evaluated, they are to give glory to God's consistent strength exercised on their behalf. Their song, the one they learn, the one they bubble over in as they reflect on their heritage, ends on a high note.

What is ours as joint heirs with Christ? Or do we even hear our song the Lord inspires, often in the less impeded view of others first? Our self-condemning, self-comparing noise is often deafening. The cacophony therein drowns out what others would celebrate of God's work in us, what He allows them to see as the product of years – all while we are stuck in frustrating moments.

If we can't get outside ourselves enough to sing our own song with the accuracy and freedom Glory will permit, we can, perhaps, do so for others. We can take note of His progress in their lives, give gladness where they find it scarce, look at the remnants of their best efforts and note that God is glorified.