Trusting God in Traumatic Times
The Confessions of Jeremiah, Part 1
Jeremiah 11:18-Jeremiah 12:6
Jeremiah 12:5-6 If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee; yea, they have called a multitude after thee: believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee.
Jeremiah endured traumatic times and he often wondered what God was doing. Haven’t we all?
Have you ever wondered whether God has failed you? Or, do you think that He does not come through for you fast enough? We may be afraid to say yes, but Jeremiah wasn’t tentative to go to God and tell Him exactly how He felt. Jeremiah spoke his honest heart to God, and the Lord responded in like manner.
Scholars call these unique, honest, and personal conversations between God and Jeremiah the “Confessions of Jeremiah.” This article will consider the first two of eight such confessions.1
These initial confessions occur when Jeremiah’s friends and family (his hometown companions from Anathoth!) threatened him with a secret assassination plot hatched. How painful this was to Jeremiah! Not only were they seemingly getting away with it, but also they were happily prospering while doing it. Jeremiah wondered out loud, “Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?” (Jer.12:1) He was deeply disturbed and wondered out loud to God, “What are you doing?”
Here are three principles Jeremiah had to follow in order to make it through traumatic times.
Jeremiah’s first step was to trust God to defend him. (Jer. 11:18-12:1-4)
Jeremiah was clueless about this murderous scheme because they spoke flattering words to him. God in omniscient wisdom disclosed their evil plot to his prophet (v. 18). God communicated to Jeremiah the very words of the plotters against him. They said, “Let us cut him off from the land of the living!” The plotters spoke against Jeremiah and gleefully concluded, “This childless man will be forgotten soon!” (v. 19b). As you read these verses, it sounds exactly like what they did to Jesus!
Jeremiah responds to God, “You have cross-examined my motives and actions, so let me see Your revenge quickly against these plotters!” (v. 20). The Lord responded to Jeremiah, “I will punish them and protect you, but it will happen according to my timetable” (v. 21-23). God revealed to Jeremiah that a year of their visitation, or their punishment approached. It was the year 587 BC, when they would die by the sword and famine.
Jeremiah was not to take this situation into his own hand. He had to wait on God to bring about His justice. Trusting God means waiting on His timing to deal with our difficulty.
Jeremiah’s honest response to God comes in Jeremiah 12:1-4, “If you are going to punish these con artists why are they prospering in the meantime?2 Why don’t you punish them now?” The fraudsters seemed happy and safe. They talked like spiritual giants experiencing material success. Jeremiah was thinking, “Make them pay now. Don’t wait! They are flourishing and our land is depressed and dying!” Jeremiah knew he could never get away with what they are doing, but he trusted God to defend him.
The second step to trust God in traumatic times was to trust God to direct the circumstances (Jer. 12:5-6). God tells Jeremiah, “Expect the difficulties to increase, not decrease, in your ministry. If running against men has wearied you, tried your patience, and left you exhausted, how will you do running against horses?”
This means that God was training Jeremiah for more strenuous service and more severe suffering. If the plots of those in Anathoth were sinking him, how would he fare when the chief priests, prophets, and kings turn against him? How will he bear up beatings and imprisonment? How will he stand when the Chaldeans come and burn down the temple and city?
God in a sense told him, “Jeremiah you have to step up your game because these are the warm-ups. This is like the little leagues and the big leagues are coming!”
Not only would the difficulty increase, but also would the dangers. The shoreline along the Jordan River was a tangled jungle where wolves, leopards, and lions made their home. Floods drove those animals out of their shoreline dens and resting places to roam about in order to find a resting place. God takes this picturesque metaphor and says, “If you stumble and feel unsafe in a safe country, how will you manage in the floods of the Jordan River, among wild beasts in the jungles around Jordan?”
Jeremiah’s ministry began during the peaceful days of the good King Josiah, but it would continue through the tumultuous reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah and the coming flood of the Babylonian Army.
God does not pamper his prophet and tell him, “something good will happen to you and life will get easier.” No! Instead, He says that life will get more difficult and dangerous in the days ahead. God is not saying, “Oh, I had better make things easier for Jeremiah or else he will quit on me!” No! God speaks directly to his prophet and tells him, “Brace yourself and take off your pampers, remove the pacifier from your mouth, and get out of the high chair.” It was now time for Jeremiah to grow up, to endure and to trust in the Lord to direct the circumstances. Jeremiah faced a race beyond his human ability, and so do you.
What should you expect in life? Things to settle down and get easier? No! Expect increasing troubles! Expect greater challenges that are outside the realm of human ability that require divine strength for victory.
A third action step to trust God in traumatic times is to rely upon God’s power to deliver you. God was putting Jeremiah in a place of impossibility where he could not do it on his own. He had to trust God. Do you see it in the analogy? Running and winning against horses is beyond our human ability. God’s supernatural power is required for victory.
You cannot defeat a horse in a race. That is humanly impossible! The fastest man in the world runs at a top speed of about 27 mph while a racehorse runs at a top speed of 55 mph! The increasing dangers and difficulties will require divine power.
God reminds us that the Christian service is not merely a difficult race but it is impossible in the flesh; this race requires the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. We do not have the human strength that we need to serve God. We need the fullness of God, the power of His Spirit. Jeremiah had run faithfully against the footmen. His early ministry was alongside the godly King Josiah, but that was a time of comparative peace. Jeremiah’s greatest challenges and most difficult days were still before him.
God challenges Jeremiah and those in His service: “How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” How will you do when pressures increase, difficulties swirl, and dangers surround around you? What a personal question! This is why we must move forward in the power of the risen Christ, and then the horses cannot outrun you and the floods and wild beasts of the Jordan will not overwhelm you!
The challenge for Jeremiah then and us now is to go forward in full dependence upon the power of the risen Christ, and then the horses cannot outrun you and the wilds of the Jordan will not overwhelm you!
As we live through these perilous and traumatic times, we also must rely upon our Lord Jesus Christ to defend us, direct our circumstances, and deliver us!
Matt Recker is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in New York City.
- The confessions of Jeremiah are in Jer. 11:18-23; 12:1-6; 15:10-12, 15-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-13; 14-18. The first four of these confessions also reveal God’s personal counsel to Jeremiah in his agitated state. [↩]
- Passages where the wicked prosper: Psalm 37; Psalm 49: 16-17; Psalm 73:3; Habakkuk 1:2-4; Malachi 2:17; Malachi 3:14-15. [↩]