JEREMIAH 1:4-10
"Jeremiah."
"Yes, Lord."
"I've decided that you are to be a prophet."
Jeremiah couldn't believe the thoughts that were mulling around inside his head and heart and gut about what God had in mind for him. So, he began to argue within himself with the nudging he sensed from God, described as the voice of God. He presented his case in hopes of quieting the voice within him.
Perhaps one of the best ways I've ever heard this conversation inside Jeremiah between himself and God appeared in a little book written a number of years ago. I've always enjoyed the way the author of Are You Joking, Jeremiah? paraphrased Jeremiah's argument in poetic form.
"God, there must be some mistake.
I can't do work like that.
After all,
I'm only in my teens
sporting jeans
and lounging on the rooftops.
I've had no training
in diplomacy or politics,
in how to speak,
or how to pray in public.
You'll soon be sorry, God,
if you pick someone like me.
Well, God? Well, can't you see?" (1)
I can relate to Jeremiah - he's my kind of guy. I sense in him a kindred spirit. He was a man after my own heart. His struggle with God's call on his life was my struggle. I understand Jeremiah because his reaction to the voice of God inside him was like mine was.
I know some will find this claim a little hard to believe, but I really am basically a shy, quiet, self-conscious, reserved, insecure person. I used to say that's who I was when I was young, but I've come to the place where I understand that's also who I am in my core.
Feelings of inferiority influenced how I lived my life - how I related and responded to others. Some have made the observation that perhaps my feelings of inferiority and inadequacy were early formed or influenced by my athletic interest and vice versa. They have reasoned that because I felt I wasn't as physically gifted as others, except my ability to run fast, that I worked harder - that I played with more intensity to make up for what I felt I lacked.
Others have been so bold as to suggest that I have lived my life and worked in the church and community with the same intensity or drivenness as a result of that same sort of sense in myself that the abilities or gifts for the situations I often felt called upon to be involved were lacking. The thought of being a pastor, a preacher - the thought of standing in front of a group of people week after week and talking - the thought of visiting people in hospitals when I can't even watch a nurse give me a shot or a lab technician draw blood from me - well, those were not situations I ever felt I could handle.
I have to admit to you that throughout my career there were times when I was amazed and uncomfortable at some of the things I was called upon to do simply because I was a pastor. As I've mentioned before, I went to college to be a high school basketball coach and math teacher. I felt those were things I could best do with the gifts/strengths/skills/interests I believed and sensed about myself. And although I have had the opportunity to use those interests, etc. at times in my life, they weren't the ones that fueled the fire that God ultimately stoked in my heart, head, and gut.
In the introduction to Elizabeth O'Connor's book Cry Pain, Cry Hope Gordon Cosby, minister of the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. and inspirational leader behind the Servant Leadership movement, wrote: "For a growing person, call must continue forever to be the central concern. At each evolving level of our being we are asking: 'What am I going to do with my life now?' 'How do I find the vocation that is related to my deepest self, and will help that self to unfold?'" (2)
In one of the chapters of O'Connor's book she observes: "(Call) implies a summoning voice which comes from above one, and at the same time sounds deep within one's being." (3) Call is God, "The summoning voice from above" and the "sounds deep within one's being" - Call is God making us aware - Call is God announcing to us and in us - Call is God stoking the fire in our guts through the things that happen around us and the conversations we have with others and the conversations that take place within our hearts and minds, what it is for which God wants us to give our lives. Call involves sensing a passion within one's self that will not be extinguished by the making of excuses about one's lack of gifts or the assuming that the gifts we have are the ones God wants to use. Call is God's making us aware of how God wants to use us.
In that same chapter, Elizabeth O'Connor further observes: "Time was when I thought that the all-important subject was gifts, and that, if only we could identify our gifts, and begin using them, our lives would burst with creativity and the world would be restored. Now I am not so sure. A talent may be so great that it propels a person forever down one path, as is the case with some artists. But even for these extraordinary folk, call determines whether and how they use their gifts. A writer can produce copy, history, propaganda, poetry, contracts and proposals, political speeches, or sermons." (4)
"To be deeply nurturing and to carry one's life into the future, the use of a gift must be related to what one is called to do. An authentic call is hard to discern in today's world, a fact that makes difficult the naming and using of our gifts. (And here's the sentence I most want to share:) Gifts evolve in response to call, and we may not yet have heard a call." (5)
Listen to God's response to Jeremiah's feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, again according to the author of Are You Joking, Jeremiah?:
"Keep quiet son,
don't answer me like that.
Don't say you're only in your teens,
sporting jeans,
for you will go wherever I decide,
and you will say the words which I supply.
Don't be afraid of anyone at all,
for they are just as scared as you
if you could see inside their hardening hearts
and hardening arteries.
And more than that,
don't be afraid to fail,
as most seem to be,
for I am with you even when you do.
Yes, I am, I am." (6)
And so, despite his continuing to object and argue with God about being used in this way, Jeremiah became a prophet and he prophesied with the words God supplied. Jeremiah had good reason to argue - to lament what God had him do and say - because he really suffered for some of those things. His friends and even some of his relatives beat him up for sharing the words God inspired him to say. How could he do it? Why did he continue to do it? How could this guy who would rather switch than fight, this man with the inferiority complex, put up with the public ridicule he endured and continue to speak the unpopular word of God?
The answer? His knowledge, his confidence, that God was with him - that he wasn't in the brawl alone. With God's summons - God's call - comes God's assurance, God's strength, God's encouragement, God's rescuing presence.
Yes, there were times when I sensed God wanted me to do something or say something that I hoped I was hearing wrong. There were times when I tried to argue with God about something I sensed God wanted me to do or say. But, when God plants a call inside us - when God surrounds us with signs of what needs to be done by us - when God sets the fire aflame in us - God accompanies the call. "For I am with you," God says. When God wants to use us, God promises to come alongside us - to be with us - to go with us - to furnish us with that which we need to carry out the call. Call is about passion and trusting God will be with us and that God will equip us for the fulfilling of the call.
The cure of an inferiority complex is ongoing - it's not once and done. It involves believing God is able - that God wants - that God will use us no matter who we are or what gifts we have. It involves believing God is with us as we do or say that which God provides us. And when we forget and give in to our insecurities, God stays with us - offers us forgives us - and gives us other opportunities to overcome our sense of inadequacy and be what God needs us to be.
Being used by God - the call of God - is a tough call at times. It's tough at times to discern. It's tough at times because we don't feel adequate. It's tough at times because it means we may not be understood by those we love. But God promises to be with us and to provide what we need to fulfill the ministry to which we are called. God's promised presence births within us hope for the days and weeks and months and years ahead. Being used by God is a part of what it means to be a Christian.
LET'S PRAY: GRACIOUS GOD, WHO COMMISSIONED JEREMIAH OF OLD TO BE A PROPHET TO THE NATIONS AND WHO SENT YOUR SON, JESUS, TO BE IN MINISTRY TO THE WORLD, ENABLE US BY YOUR SPIRIT TO BE FAITHFUL TO THE MINISTRIES YOU CALL US TO. ENABLE US TO HEAR YOUR WORD IN SCRIPTURE, SENDING US FORTH INTO THE WORLD TO WORK FOR JUSTICE, TO DO ACTS OF MERCY, AND TO LIVE BY THE LAW OF LOVE. FORGIVE US, O LORD, WHEN WE HEAR THE CALL WITHIN US AND FAIL TO RESPOND. FILL US WITH YOUR GRACE AND STRENGTHEN OUR RESOLVE TO DO WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE US DO AND SAY WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE US SAY. IN CHRIST OUR SAVIOR’S NAME WE PRAY. AMEN.
Are You Joking, Jeremiah?
ELIZABETH O’CONNOR, CRY PAIN, CRY HOPE, (Washington, D.C., The Servant Leadership School, 1987), Introduction.
Ibid., p. 80.
Ibid., p. 79.
Ibid., p. 79-80.
Are You Joking, Jeremiah?
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