To the point of no return

I began this post in the middle of March. Currently reading another book of the Bible, but needed to get this out there...

As I continue to read Jeremiah, I come face to face with the reality of how much God desires and requires justice for His people. His eyes are always on the oppressed (you can see this trend in Psalms as well); he always asks for us to take care of widows and orphans. These ideas broaden my perspective on what it means to be a missionary as well.

Why are we here? We are here to give our lives. The best phrase I know that sums it up is "To know Him and make Him known." Who are we, and where is here is something worth mentioning. We generally refers to Christians. Here includes wherever you are with the opportunity to serve for the sake of Christ. This last sentence should help us realize that it's not always a particular place, but exactly where we've been planted. However, no one ever said it was going to be easy. Just take a look at the life of most of the prophets with books named after them to know this.

In particular, Jeremiah reaches a point in which he says, "I wish I had never been born!"

Immediately the life of Job came to mind. I'm pretty sure he had said something about wishing he'd never escaped from his mother's womb too. Or something of that graphic nature... What I'm trying to say is both had really great relationships with God, and yet both regret being alive.

These terse paragraphs are weak descriptions of something bigger. To summarize, we are small. We are called by God in the midst of our smallness to serve Him around the world. At first, most of us (see Moses) think it has to do with who we are (or if we're wise like Jeremiah, we realize He's crazy for picking us when He can do the job so much better!). After awhile, we start to see the bigger picture of what God is talking about.

Namely, to love justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

It's not until we see the world (which includes a lot of our carnal nature) for what she truly is that we too become angry at the despicable nature of sin. That's the point at which we wish we had never come to be in the first place. When we see sin for what it is, it's something we realize we don't want anything to do with any more.

Paul talks about this in Philippians. He knows that to just get the death thing over with and be with Christ is so much better, but for the sake of the church he remains. Job, Jeremiah, Paul... showing that one can long for death, yet live in glorious expectation. After all, once you come this far, there's no turning back.

Chau.