This coming Wednesday night I will teach my very first lesson at Central Baptist Church. I will be teaching through the first two chapters of Jeremiah. Right there in that very first chapter of Jeremiah is a jewel of a verse…
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you…
Jeremiah 1:5
Jeremiah was appointed a prophet to the nations. This was what God had created him for and called him to do. Later in the second chapter God tells him something pretty important…
Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests and to the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 2:18-19
God encouraged Jeremiah. He made sure that he knew that God had made him as a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of bronze. Jeremiah needed to know this because the attack was going to come. Jeremiah would have to learn to trust in the midst of fear.
Let me ask you… do you turn to trust when fear sends its blazing arrows your way?
I can honestly tell you right now that I am experiencing fear. I am staring fear right in the face and I feel it circling around my head like those devil birds that I cringe at every time I come up on one chowing down on its latest road kill cuisine. I feel it tightening my chest and I feel it trying to suck what little calm I manage to maintain right out of me. Yet… somehow by the grace of God I am still able to trust in the midst of fear.
I trust because He said He is with me… and I believe Him.
I trust because He said He never gives a snake when his children ask for a fish… and I believe Him.
I trust because He said I could… and I believe Him.
I am trying so hard not to be angry… trying so hard not to be angry at the God I love so deeply and trying so hard not to be angry at those who have wounded me and those I love… holding your tongue is hard… holding your fingers at the wide open gate of a keyboard is even harder.
I keep mulling over Jeremiah 1:5 and the word appointed. Jeremiah was appointed for a specific task for a specific time to a specific people. The word appointed in the Hebrew is nathan and it means to give, set, put. God gave Jeremiah to this time, to these people. He set his course. He put him in his purpose. Does God do that for us? Are the words of Jeremiah 1:5 for all of us?
You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
John 15:16
There it is… right there in the New Testament… Jesus speaking to His disciples… the word appointed. They, we, appointed to go and bear fruit.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10
The word appointed is not there in Ephesians, but it is clear that beforehand, before we knew Christ, God already had good works planned for us to walk in. We are His workmanship. Before we were born again in Him, before we were in the process of being conformed into His image… God appointed to us, gave us, set before us, our own course.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us
Hebrews 12:1
At first reading this verse in Hebrews sounds like it could be referring to a group, possibly to the church as a whole, but when we look at the original Greek what we see is that the word used for “us” in this verse is NOT plural… it’s singular. This verse could be read like this…
Therefore, since I have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding me, let me also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles me, and let me run with endurance the race that is set before me.
I have a race.
You have a race.
My Daddy has a race.
My Father-in-Law has a race.
My Sister-in-Law has a race.
For some reason beyond what I can see and understand in this life cancer has become a part of their race.
I DON’T LIKE IT.
Yet it is. It is and I know that in no way could it be apart from God allowing it to be… and here is where the tug of war of trust and fear collide. Here is where Jeremiah stood as a fortified city against all of the land. Standing in the face of great attack yet standing still. Standing seeing those he loved hurting and knowing beyond a shadow of any doubt that the God of everlasting lovingkindness could stop it all. Could stop the attacks against himself. Could stop the attacks against the city. Could stop the spinning of the earth and the flow of the exact amount of trade between oxygen and carbon dioxide that allowed all of creation to even exist.
But He didn’t… because He had a plan. He had a plan for Jeremiah. He had a plan for Jerusalem. He had a plan for not just the salvation of Jeremiah and Jerusalem, but for the world… and that plan is not yet complete… so we who believe step in and we grab the baton for our leg of the race.
God has a plan for us.
The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand,…”
Isaiah 14:24
It is this plan and the knowledge of this set race that keeps me trusting in the midst of fear. This and the fact that God is greater than cancer. Cancer cannot defeat Christ. Cancer does not decide when your race is over. God does.
My head knows this even when my heart falls apart.
How thankful I am that God is greater than our hearts.