Jeremiah 31:31-32a – Fathering Tomorrow's Assumptions
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers… Jeremiah 31:31-32a, New King James Version
Prevented by disability from driving, and, at least for now, from continuing my career, God has an interestingly individualistic way of keeping my questing sense of purpose kindled. He has given me an unusual memory for fragments of pop culture, supplemented by a dogged use of OneNote and cemented by a capacity to connect quotes and scenes to the Gospel. Writing on social media, I endeavor to present Christ to "secular" Facebook groups in their own vernacular.
Even here, though, with lipservice to His sovereign purposes, the flesh's leadening of expectations can kick in. No doubt by the negative flipside of my ability to turn small details into a dramatic story, I've been roughed up a little by recent group responses. Some "secular" groups won't admit the post, as it is not closely enough related to the usual, literal rehearsal of specifics they discuss. Sometimes, Christian groups in which I continue to place unrealistic hopes quibble over details, and I allow my resilience to get caught in the crossfire.
I obey anyway, like Charlie Brown gearing up to kick the football, more for the absence of other ready alternatives than any constant gush of faith-filled optimism. So it was when a scene from a sitcom I hadn't viewed in a quarter-century snapped into place in reference to a verse I was contemplating. I wrote the piece. I genuinely liked the piece for what it reinforced TO ME about God's character. Then I went about my boundary-pushing to ask admittance into a Facebook group centered on the show's star, followed by showing my real colors and submitting thoughts on how the show revealed the Gospel to me.
That I was surprised when the post was accepted, and even more surprised by some positive feedback showed much about the condition of my heart. By all rights, it shouldn't have happened, for surely I fell under the sanction in James's epistle that if we ask without faith, we should not expect to receive from the Lord. Yet, I asked, sought, knocked halfheartedly, and He opened anyway.
I consider this state of mind, ambivalent yet persistently blessed, as I begin to open my heart before Jeremiah 31:32. I need to linger for inspection at the NOT which begins that verse, like a traveler required to stop at customs to have what he is carrying into a new country thoroughly considered.
Sure, I can reconsider what my father, and his father, and his father, have passed on to me. I have, and I have left some of it behind. If I am to conduct these considerations, though, with any equanimity, I have to remove the logs from my own eyes. I have to consider, especially as an adult of a certain age, where I've allowed my own expectations from yesterday to propagate into today.
God insists that He, the author of new in Genesis, still does new in Jeremiah. He still does new in Revelation, unveiling there a new Heaven and a new Earth. In between, He won't, almost can't, kick the habit of newness no matter how much His own soil or cling to the old. Covering that tendency, He says He brings new mercies with every sunrise. Without them, we wouldn't even see the other aspects of newness He is unveiling with each day and even each moment.
Having seen this pattern in God's character time and time again, having quoted that very verse time and time again, how often do I still step on His eagerness to introduce with my lingering resignation, regret, and resentment? How often have I got to get my ever-lengthening spiel in about how so-and-so fathered some idea or some situation that limits today before I even listen to what God the ultimate Father says over this day? How often am I misusing the gift he gave Me, and surely others, to find analogies and patterns, to constrict the possibilities of what He may do now and in the future?
After all, how much more convincingly could our Heavenly Father show both the capacity and willingness to break old molds than with the resurrection of His Son? THAT day was so new, its newness ought to be reverberating into this one, causing those who come after Christ to question every assumption, to wonder with eagerness what bond He might break, what blessing He might unleash. That same Christ Who was to pattern resurrection for His own even commissioned us to agree in prayer that doors, heretofore closed, be opened. Today is a day granted to exercise faith and explore possibility.
Prevented by disability from driving, and, at least for now, from continuing my career, God has an interestingly individualistic way of keeping my questing sense of purpose kindled. He has given me an unusual memory for fragments of pop culture, supplemented by a dogged use of OneNote and cemented by a capacity to connect quotes and scenes to the Gospel. Writing on social media, I endeavor to present Christ to "secular" Facebook groups in their own vernacular.
Even here, though, with lipservice to His sovereign purposes, the flesh's leadening of expectations can kick in. No doubt by the negative flipside of my ability to turn small details into a dramatic story, I've been roughed up a little by recent group responses. Some "secular" groups won't admit the post, as it is not closely enough related to the usual, literal rehearsal of specifics they discuss. Sometimes, Christian groups in which I continue to place unrealistic hopes quibble over details, and I allow my resilience to get caught in the crossfire.
I obey anyway, like Charlie Brown gearing up to kick the football, more for the absence of other ready alternatives than any constant gush of faith-filled optimism. So it was when a scene from a sitcom I hadn't viewed in a quarter-century snapped into place in reference to a verse I was contemplating. I wrote the piece. I genuinely liked the piece for what it reinforced TO ME about God's character. Then I went about my boundary-pushing to ask admittance into a Facebook group centered on the show's star, followed by showing my real colors and submitting thoughts on how the show revealed the Gospel to me.
That I was surprised when the post was accepted, and even more surprised by some positive feedback showed much about the condition of my heart. By all rights, it shouldn't have happened, for surely I fell under the sanction in James's epistle that if we ask without faith, we should not expect to receive from the Lord. Yet, I asked, sought, knocked halfheartedly, and He opened anyway.
I consider this state of mind, ambivalent yet persistently blessed, as I begin to open my heart before Jeremiah 31:32. I need to linger for inspection at the NOT which begins that verse, like a traveler required to stop at customs to have what he is carrying into a new country thoroughly considered.
Sure, I can reconsider what my father, and his father, and his father, have passed on to me. I have, and I have left some of it behind. If I am to conduct these considerations, though, with any equanimity, I have to remove the logs from my own eyes. I have to consider, especially as an adult of a certain age, where I've allowed my own expectations from yesterday to propagate into today.
God insists that He, the author of new in Genesis, still does new in Jeremiah. He still does new in Revelation, unveiling there a new Heaven and a new Earth. In between, He won't, almost can't, kick the habit of newness no matter how much His own soil or cling to the old. Covering that tendency, He says He brings new mercies with every sunrise. Without them, we wouldn't even see the other aspects of newness He is unveiling with each day and even each moment.
Having seen this pattern in God's character time and time again, having quoted that very verse time and time again, how often do I still step on His eagerness to introduce with my lingering resignation, regret, and resentment? How often have I got to get my ever-lengthening spiel in about how so-and-so fathered some idea or some situation that limits today before I even listen to what God the ultimate Father says over this day? How often am I misusing the gift he gave Me, and surely others, to find analogies and patterns, to constrict the possibilities of what He may do now and in the future?
After all, how much more convincingly could our Heavenly Father show both the capacity and willingness to break old molds than with the resurrection of His Son? THAT day was so new, its newness ought to be reverberating into this one, causing those who come after Christ to question every assumption, to wonder with eagerness what bond He might break, what blessing He might unleash. That same Christ Who was to pattern resurrection for His own even commissioned us to agree in prayer that doors, heretofore closed, be opened. Today is a day granted to exercise faith and explore possibility.
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