January 22nd, 2021
Psalm 62:5–12; Jeremiah 20:7–13; 2 Peter 3:1–7
Jeremiah is sometimes known as the weeping prophet. At several points, he complains or laments directly to God, wishing he had never been born and explaining how his call to prophesy has ruined him. Much has been made of the fire burning in him, God’s word which he cannot physically hold in, he is utterly overpowered by God.
Some may use this passage to infer that everyone has a call by God like this in them, and certainly some do. But I wonder how a prophet like Jonah felt. Jonah seems to have had no fire burning in him when he left the other way for Nineveh, or even when he gave a one sentence “sermon” for only a fraction of the great city he was to proclaim God’s word to.
I would never doubt someone if they felt that same fire in them today as Jeremiah did. I have felt something like this, not quite a fire, but a sense that nothing else would be right to do, more a persistent itch than a fire.
But God has spoken in a variety of ways in the past, and has been likewise received in a variety of ways. God is not contained by our limitations on what call looks like. We have been and will be surprised at the new and creative ways our God is revealed to us.
Different ways, however, are not revealing a different God. It is only this God, the one living God, revealed in Jesus, through the Spirit who speak to us. Differently as we may hear the divine voice and varied as the people of God are. This God and none other who speaks to all of creation.
