By F. D. Adkins
It’s in the perspective. I find that the angle in which we view something can drastically change the way it looks. So, we have to choose our perspective. We can look at a situation the way the world wants us to see it, or we can search for God’s perspective.
In our world, life often seems unfair. Some struggle financially their entire lives while others are born into riches, wasting more than others will ever have. Some are athletic, while some (like me) can trip over their own feet just walking across the room. If we look at fairness through the eyes of the world, this list of comparisons could be endless. And the enemy has a knack for pinpointing that one thing we feel is unfair and taunting us with it… just as he did in the beginning with Eve. He managed to put her focus on the one tree that she was not supposed to eat of while blinding her to the bountiful blessings surrounding her. And when God asked Moses to go to the Pharoah, Moses’ first thoughts were not on his positive attributes or the reason God was selecting him for this task, but rather on what he saw as a weakness: his speech.
These past few weeks I have been delving into the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a great prophet sent by God to deliver a message to the people of Judah. Yet, just as being a Christian does not make us exempt from trials and tribulations or the devil’s constant stumbling blocks, his devotion and obedience to God did not make him exempt from the suffering, persecution, or his own human emotion brought upon by the ways of the world.
I would like to share a few key points that have spoken to me as I have studied this section of scripture.
First, I noted that in Jeremiah 12:1-2, he questions the prosperity of those who did not truly follow God. As I read these verses, I could vividly visualize this faithful man called by God to deliver a message but still battling his own human thoughts in the process. I could imagine this little whisper repeating… it’s not fair… it’s not fair. Jeremiah questions in a respectful manner, “Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins” (Jeremiah 12:1-2 KJV). Of course, Jeremiah knows the truth. After all, he has been sent on this mission to warn them of their demise because of their actions. Yet, for a moment, he still has to battle his human thinking… those thoughts the enemy tosses to throw us off.
Second, he was not exempt from depression and sadness. In Chapter 15, he even questions his own existence, wondering if it would not have been better if he had never been born. He laments, “Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me” (Jeremiah 15:10). Of course, the truth is that God had great purpose for Jeremiah. God had created him to deliver a message. But even so, Jeremiah still struggled with some of the very thoughts that plague so many today.
Third, God tells Jeremiah not to marry or have children. “Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place” (Jeremiah 16:2 KJV). When I got to this verse, I stopped and thought of the many times that God may tell us, “No,” or not answer a prayer the way we want. But as I continued to read, I understood that God was sparing Jeremiah more pain. Jeremiah 16:3-4 details, “For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land; They shall die of grievous deaths…” (KJV). These verses remind me that God knows tomorrow, and his answers to our prayers do not always align with our present wants, but rather with what He knows is best for our future.
Finally, the last verses I want to share spoke to me so deeply that I chose them as my verses to memorize last week. I knew at the moment that I read these words, that it was no coincidence that they happened to fall into my reading for that day because at that moment it was a reminder that my heart and soul were longing for. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease in yielding fruit” (KJV).
