The changing of a culture starts with those who are living within it.
What do Jeremiah’s prophesies have to
do with our world today?
Jeremiah found himself in a nation known for
materialism,
economic crisis, political globalization, and religious plurality.
Does any of that sound familiar?
In the Book of Jeremiah, God calls out
to His people, continually asking them to place their hope in Him instead of
political alliances, material possessions, and people. Spoelstra wants readers
to recognize hope-filled living is possible, even in an unstable world.
Below is an excerpt that shares more
of the message from Dare to Hope.
Excerpted
from Dare to Hope: Living Intentionally
in an Unstable World by Melissa Spoelstra, © 2019 Abingdon Press.
My husband and I discovered in our
first year of marriage that doing home projects together is dangerous. When we
tried to put up a wallpaper border in a bedroom, we had some pretty rough
interactions. The root issue stems from both of us being control freaks. We
like to lead and direct how things go. This can be a good thing in certain
situations like when God has called us to lead, but when we have different
ideas about anything from parenting to finances, our controlling natures war
against each other. After several decades of marriage, I hope we have made some
progress in the area of compromise—at least in the domain of painting walls and
organizing the garage.
Being a control freak can get me in
trouble in the spiritual realm as well. When life seems to be going as I think
it should and God’s instructions through His Spirit and His Word make sense to
me, then I don’t have to be daring with hope. However, I find more often that life
feels complicated and often God’s instructions take faith rather than sight to
obey. It is during these seasons that I must raise the white flag and surrender
to God’s way.
The prophet Jeremiah experienced some
instructions from God that didn’t follow the rules of logic. God told him to
hide underwear, speak bold messages, and identify counterfeits in the lives of
the political and spiritual leaders of his day. I can’t imagine what this would
have been like when he was first called to deliver God’s message of surrender
as a boy of likely fourteen or fifteen years old. Though we might think that
Jeremiah and other prophets of the Bible were super righteous, had it all
together, and never struggled, the truth is that they were normal people like
you and me. Jeremiah got depressed, made excuses, and even did some whining
occasionally. But there is something that sets him apart from most of us: his
unrelenting commitment to communicate God’s message. You might say that
Jeremiah was both deep and relatable!
Although Jeremiah’s words resound from
over twenty-six hundred years ago, they echo into our day with uncanny
relevance. Our world is rife with greed, poverty, injustice, racism, and
oppression, just to name a few of the challenges and battles. So what is our
message to the world, and how do we go about sharing that message? To answer
that question, we can look to the prophets—whose message, the disciple Peter
said, is the light our dark world needs:
Because of that great experience, we have even greater confidence
in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what
they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the
Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. Above all, you must
realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own
understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the
Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God. (2 Peter 1:19-21)
When we pay close attention to the
writings of the prophet Jeremiah, we discover that the changing of a culture
starts with those who are living within it. If we long to see a turning back to
God in our land, then we need to recognize that it starts with us—with you and
with me. Not only does Jeremiah’s prophecy matter today; God Himself gives us
some direct instructions regarding how we should respond to it. Let’s unpack a
few of these together.
Learn more about Melissa Spoelstra and
Dare to Hope at www.melissaspoelstra.com.
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