
1Then all the army officers, including Johanan, Kareah’s son, and Jezaniah, Hoshaiah’s son, and the rest of the people, from the least to the greatest, approached 2 Jeremiah the prophet and said to him, “We have something to ask you: Please pray to the Lord your God for us, this small group, for as you can see we were once many but now are very few. 3 May the Lord your God show us where we should go and what we should do.”
4 The prophet Jeremiah replied, “Yes, I’ll pray to the Lord your God as you have asked. And I’ll tell you whatever the Lord says; I won’t hide anything from you.”
5 Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we fail to do everything that the Lord your God tells us through you. 6 Whether we like it or not, we will obey all that the Lord our God says. We will obey the Lord our God, to whom we’re sending you, so it may go well for us.”
Reflection
I will be the first one to say that sometimes the Old Testament makes my head spin with all of the wars, countries, kings, etc. I am not good with the details and timelines. I used to attend an adult Sunday School class that was led by various people – one of them a professor of ancient history – so he was very knowledgeable, but sometimes I just heard wah wah, wah wah like listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher. I did read some of the prior chapters in Jeremiah to understand a bit about this particular passage and also some after to see the result.
The king of Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar) had taken over Jerusalem. There were small groups that were scattered around. Jeremiah had been released from captivity. There were people that Nebuchadnezzar had put in charge of certain areas and the person in charge of this particular area had been killed so the Judeans had a small window of time to make some decisions. They had no resources and were picking grapes to feed themselves, so the times were rather desperate. They were at a crossroads, and it feels like a kind of last-ditch effort when they ask Jeremiah to pray to God to show them what they should do. The answer comes that they should stay where they are – even though war is still going on. Now they decide that they are not going to listen to what Jeremiah told them God said, even though they promised they would. Well, they left and were destroyed – Nebuchadnezzar took his war into Egypt, and all were killed.
One of the things I thought about when I read the passage was – how often do we do something or decide something and then afterward think “oh I really should have prayed about this before I said yes or no or before I made a decision?” The other thing I thought was sometimes the answer is not what we thought, and we are afraid to take a step in a direction that we really feel God wants us to go, but we decide that can’t be right, so we take control.
Sometimes it is a really hard thing to know what is right and things don’t always work out the way we thought we wanted them to, but listening to God and letting God lead us always has a profound effect on our lives. One election years ago I remember very specifically that I was adamant I was not voting for a particular candidate, but when I prayed about it, I had a strong sense God wanted me to vote for that person. It ended up that person won by a very high margin. I was upset because that is not who I wanted, but at the same time, my obedience strengthened my relationship to God, and I felt that God did lead me to make other decisions that ended up being significant in my personal life.
My family will tell you I want to be in charge of lots of things, and they don’t always know when I bite my tongue and take myself out of the situation, but I do sometimes! I am certainly a work in progress, and I definitely do things without seeking advice, but I try to always pray for guidance. Turning things over totally and not worrying is difficult, but it is helpful to have God with me in the things I experience in my life.
by Janet Waryck
For Pondering and Prayer
Can you think of a time that you failed to ask God to guide you through something? Or if you did ask and you got an answer you didn’t like – so you went your own way – how did that turn out for you?
Prayer: God of wisdom and care, help us to give our hard (and easy) questions to you. Help us to remember that you want to take our burdens and help us through this life. Thank you for wanting us to come to you with everything. Amen.