Jeremiah 10:23-24 Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own;
    it is not for them to direct their steps.
Discipline me, Lord, but only in due measure—
    not in your anger,
    or you will reduce me to nothing.

Jeremiah was certainly someone with prophetic gifting. This fits perfectly with the Perceiver gifting in the Motivational Gifts teaching laid out by Don and Katie Fortune. Jeremiah was sharply aware of human limitations, and his trust was totally in God. It takes real courage to ask God to correct you! He was well aware that God’s wrath could wipe mankind out in an instant, but he was also deeply aware that God was a God of mercy and grace. He knew that God was the very definition of justice, and that was where he placed his hope. He was called and sent by God as a prophet in the most difficult period in Jewish history, all the way up through the defeat by Babylon and the destruction of the temple. I don’t envy him! However, he enjoyed an intimacy with God that is conversely quite enviable. We have many priceless promises of God courtesy of Jeremiah, in chapter 29 and elsewhere. The reason Jeremiah was able to do all he did is expressed right here, in the awareness that he wasn’t the arbiter of how he was to spend his life, God was. He knew he couldn’t decide his own fate, but he trusted God to have a good plan, just as God spoke to him clearly in Jeremiah 29:11. We also live in tumultuous times, for most of us not nearly as tragic as those Jeremiah experienced, so we have a lot to learn from him. We too need to trust God to be just, merciful, and gracious. We have the huge advantage of knowing the whole story of Jesus, the cross and resurrection. We have no excuse for despair, whatever is going on around us, because we know that God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. When we have that assurance, we too can, and should, ask God to correct us, knowing that He will do what is best for us and for the world, for His glory.

This is spot on. Just yesterday I read an excellent article by Sarah Holliday in The Washington Stand, put out by the Family Research Council, in which she spoke clearly about how we aren’t to complain about anything we go through, but rather trust that God is doing what we need, whatever it looks like in the moment. My personal plans are in a bit of turmoil, because of planning to go to the US because of my brother’s hospitalization, with all sorts of complications to those plans, and then being called to reality by my own daughter, realizing that, as my wife’s primary caregiver, I can’t just leave her here, even for a week. As it stands right now, we are thinking of going together to the US about a month from now, but we will need to be sensitive and obedient to God’s guidance every step of the way. That too fits perfectly with what Jeremiah wrote here! All sorts of things are on the schedule in the interval, and I need to fulfill God’s purposes for me step by step, for the benefit of those around me and for His glory.

Father, thank You for this strong reminder. Thank You for the interdenominational prayer meeting that will be here this morning. Thank You for all that is in tomorrow’s very full schedule. Thank You that You have it all planned out, and all I really need to do is rest, relax, and rejoice in You, just as You have told me to do. Help me do exactly that, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!