The Cost of the Call

Great heroes of the faith in scripture are rightfully lifted up as examples of living a life completely devoted to God and His kingdom. What may be overlooked sometimes is the personal cost of their devotion.

While reading through Jeremiah, the personal suffering of this prophet really stood out to me this time. Jeremiah chapter 1:4-19 has the details of his calling. Notice that Jeremiah did not go to bible school in order to become a prophet nor was he seeking this position, instead he was told by God that he was created for the purpose of prophesying to the nations. We can see his apprehension to his calling in his Moses-like response in verse 6. Imagine what he felt as God spelled out the terrible message Jeremiah would bring to the nations, in which He promised an aggressive response from the people in v.19.

Thankfully for Jeremiah, the Lord promised deliverance from those who would kill him, but he still suffered at the hand of those who hated his message (11:18-23; 18:18;ch26; & 32:2-5 for example).

Proclaiming the coming judgement to the nations was taxing on Jeremiah. Several times in this book, we see Jeremiah sorrow over the coming judgement of his people. The most poignant passage to me that illustrates the struggle Jeremiah had with his message is found in chapter 20 verses 7-18:
7. O LORD, You induced me, and I was persuaded; You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I am in derision daily; Everyone mocks me. For when I spoke, I cried out; I shouted, "Violence and plunder!" Because the word of the LORD was made to me A reproach and a derision daily. Then I said, "I will not make mention of Him, Nor speak anymore in His name." But His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not. For I heard many mocking: "Fear on every side!" "Report," they say, "and we will report it!" All my acquaintances watched for my stumbling, saying, "Perhaps he can be induced; Then we will prevail against him, And we will take our revenge on him." But the LORD is with me as a mighty, awesome One. Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and will not prevail. They will be greatly ashamed, for they will not prosper. Their everlasting confusion will never be forgotten.
Jeremiah had come to the point where he could no longer bear the persecution and decided to stop prophesying in order to bring relief to himself, only the message burned within him and that burning overtook him to the point he was compelled to proclaim it. How convicting it is to read of this struggle Jeremiah had with proclaiming his message. I have a message to proclaim, does it burn within me to the point where I can no longer hold it in? We see his agony in the remainder of chapter 20: Cursed be the day in which I was born! Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me! Let the man be cursed who brought news to my father, saying, "A male child has been born to you!" making him very glad. And let that man be like the cities which the LORD overthrew, and did not relent; Let him hear the cry in the morning and the shouting at noon, because he did not kill me from the womb, that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb always enlarged with me. Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
Wow! The conflict raging within Jeremiah caused him to despair of his own life. I can't help but think of Job when reading these words who suffered greatly in the outworking of God's will in his life. It seems there is an underlying theme in scripture; The Call Costs.

Political Steam

I fell the need to throw up on the few who read my random musings. As a citizen of this country which is unique in all of history, I have never been so completely dumbfounded at my fellow countrymen/women as I am right at this moment in time. I thought the last few election cycles were circuses, but this one blows even Barnum & Baily's out of the water. There is a real chance that our next president will be a man who has never run a small business, let alone an entire state. Most of his time in the senate has been spent running for president. We have been totally duped! The sound-bite media has made this guy into an infallible messiah-like figure and we have bought it! I have listened to countless people begin stammering when asked what qualifies this man to be president or what he has accomplished. Aside from one obscure piece of legislation I've heard a few people cite, there is nothing these people can cite except for "he is not Bush", or "he is for "change." " One man told Sean Hannity that Mr. Obama will do more to solve the oil crisis and save the environment than Mr. Mc Cain will with his legislation that will raise the CAFE standards to somewhere near 45mpg. Is he kidding? Since when has the government passed legislation and then like magic the problem is solved. Gun control, anyone? How about social security? The War on Drugs? Do we really believe that the auto industry is going to be able to meet that standard just because the government said they had to? Congress had better repeal the laws of physics. Let me add that Mc Cain's plans don't excite me either. And for those who believe more drilling domestically is not the answer because it will take too long, where is your alternative energy source that we can begin using tomorrow? Or even ten years from now?

What bothers me most about the democratic candidate is not just that we don't know much about him and his rather thin resume, but that his answers to every problem involve government intervention and more spending. Laws and money. The republican candidate is guilty of this too. This troubles me on two levels. First, the constitution of the United States specifically limits the powers of the federal government. Nowhere do I see the the authorization to limit so-called "greenhouse gases" (yes, Mr. McCain, I'm talking to you too), take over one tenth of our nation's economy (health care), or provide for pre-school and college education for all, among other things. We began going down this road a long time ago, I know, but I hate to see us continue to trade our freedoms in for perceived security, which brings me to my second point. To call this nation a free country now is almost a stretch, if either of these candidates actually accomplish what they promise to do, we will be more like a socialist nation in Europe than the USA my grandparents grew up in. Or even the one my parents grew up in. Our populace had better begin thinking beyond ten second sound-bites and try to determine just what "change" means.

I'm afraid that our nation will continue to go down the road toward socialism. Most of us do not know much about our history beyond the American Indians and slavery. We are not aware of what the world was like before we declared our independence. We do not understand our founding documents that guarantee our freedoms on the premise that they come from God, not government. We have bought the line that our constitution is a "living" document and it's interpretation is open to the whims of the supreme court. In fact, our supreme court is consulting foreign law in deciding cases. In short, for all this education we have in our society, and for as high a value we place on a degree, we sure are ignorant about our own nation's history and they way our government was set up. Couple this with our inability to think beyond a ten second sound-bite and it is no wonder to me that our choices for president are what they are.

When does Life Begin?

Our culture has been embattled in a debate over this question for many years. The opinions range from conception all the way to three years old ("Who Lives? Who Dies? by Mark Oppenheimer, Christian Century, July 3, 2002). Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ have even disagreed over when life actually begins. I believe most of those believers who argue the point that life begins somewhere following conception are really attempting to justify or defend their social or political position because no such argument can be made from scripture.

Life is addressed throughout scripture. In fact, life is a central theme of scripture. Jesus, THE central theme of scripture, came to bring life to the spiritually dead. (John 10:10). But what do the scriptures say about the narrower topic of when life begins? Nothing. Why? The question is not valid. This question has been asked in order to discover a line we can draw where it is okay to dispose of life. The question should not be "When does life begin?" but "Where does life come from?" The bible is filled with references such as this in Isa 44:24, "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: "I am the LORD, who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the earth--Who was with me?--"" (RSV). Life is a creation of God and has value as such. Consider this exchange between the disciples and Jesus about a man born blind in John 9:2-3, "And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him."" All of life has value, even those some may label as defective or a drag on society, because their value comes from the purpose of the Creator, not the value given them by a society. In his greeting to the Ephesian church, Paul tells them they were chosen by God "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4). So when does life begin? In the mind of God in eternity past.