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Once I was just a little lady, we went to a giant church downtown. The various steps to the sanctuary had been steep. On the door the ushers greeted us. As soon as inside, I keep in mind trying as much as the ceiling, the place the lights hung down from brass ropes. I spent a part of that hour in worship questioning whether or not the lights would ever fall on us. I additionally listened to the pastor’s voice, though I may by no means see him.
On the finish of the service, we shook palms with the pastor, and he appeared like an peculiar individual to me, not “the voice” that I heard once I was sitting within the pew. He appeared peculiar and type of previous (however keep in mind, I used to be solely 5).
Someplace alongside the road, somebody instructed me that the pastor was an peculiar individual—apart from when he stepped into the pulpit. Then he was not peculiar. Then he spoke the phrases of God.
These had been awe-inspiring phrases to me. How do we all know after we are talking phrases that God has put in our mouths? How do we all know when the phrases are simply our personal opinions, whether or not fiery or comforting?
In clergy teams, pastors commiserate over the instances when we’ve spoken a prophetic phrase, and folks have gotten up and walked out. We might have been certain that God gave us a prophetic phrase, however not everybody was satisfied. But when the gospel studying from Luke is any indication, this isn’t an unusual response to talking the phrase that God has given us.
Nonetheless, I ponder: How do we all know? How do we all know that the phrases we converse have been put in our mouths by God? That’s the promise that God provides Jeremiah, a promise he by no means requested for. In actual fact, he tries to wiggle out of it. I consider that God has given me a phrase to talk, however I additionally know that I’m not Jesus or Jeremiah.
I’ll confess that the parts of Jeremiah I like essentially the most are those the place he comes again to consolation Judah, in spite of everything of his dire predictions have come true. After he has been known as a traitor, after he has known as Judah to a repentance they don’t seem to be prepared to listen to, Jeremiah laments. He goes with them in exile and reminds them to hunt the welfare of town the place they’re dwelling.
I’m pondering proper now that it isn’t simply the phrases that Jeremiah speaks that make him a prophet. It’s his willingness to share within the judgment, within the lamentation, within the exile. When he speaks the phrase of God, it isn’t a phrase from above. It’s the phrase of God with the individuals, whether or not judgment or grace.
One way or the other it appears to me that if I’m going to talk for God, it can come from the individuals. Not above them, however with them.
