For I know the plans I have for you

Jeremiah is one of my favourite accounts of receiving a call from God. I will lay that out on the table right here and now. I can relate to Jeremiah in a way that I just can’t with any of the other prophets. Jeremiah is just a young guy and I know that at even 17 years old I was no where near ready to serve God with my whole life. Even now I’m not really ready to serve God with my whole life…too bad for me eh?

So let’s take a peek at what happened with Jeremiah and his call shall we? In Jeremiah 1:4-10 we find the account of Jeremiah’s call.

It’s a scary thought. God is telling Jeremiah about the plans he has for him, and they are something that Jeremiah had not really entertained seriously at all. I mean, sure, he lived the majority of his life under the assumption that he would one day become a priest, it was the way of the family after all! The key phrase in here, though, is someday. It wouldn’t be happening anytime soon because he still had so much more to learn. He needed to grow up a bit, mature a lot and gain the wisdom that was required to be a proper servant of God.

And really that makes absolute sense. I’m sure that you and I both have a list that’s filled up with things that I would like to do “someday.”

v I’ll do more work in the community…once I get settled in and have a little more time.

v I’ll start giving 10% of my income to the church…once I’ve got enough money that I feel comfortable

v I’ll start telling people about God…once I’ve taken some theology classes

v I’ll start going to bible study…once I feel that I’m smart enough

v Add your own here

You and I are amazing at coming up with lists, and then coming up with reasons why we can’t complete those items on said lists. If he was given the chance I’m sure that’s what Jeremiah would have done as well had God given in to his arguments. Let’s use our imaginations to try and picture this:

“You see God, I’m just too young. Let’s try this again in 5, well, better make it ten years. I’m sure I’ll be mature enough by then!”

“Oh wow, has it been 10 years already? I would go off and be your prophet God, but you see we just had our third little bundle of joy here. I couldn’t possibly leave my wife and kids to go traipsing around all the nations being your prophet. How about we give it another 20 years or so, give the kids a chance to grow up.”

“God, what are you thinking? I’m an old man. I don’t have the stamina to go and be your servant. Maybe you’d be better off finding someone younger to do this.”

Later on in Jeremiah we see one of the most widely used bible verses, aside from John 3:16, which says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” This is given to many delightful confirmation students (why yes, this was my confirmation verse, how did you guess?), is spoken to those who are in need of comfort and is used as a platitude for many. But how comforting of a verse is it actually? If you look at the context, if you look at Jeremiah’s call, God’s plan in these circumstances is not what we had in mind. It doesn’t follow our nicely planned out existence. It’s really quite hard, requiring the laying down of our own plans and taking up God’s plans; of following the uncertain rather than the well-trod path with which we are comfortably familiar. It requires a lot of effort, even more sacrifice and the payoff is quite minimal in comparison to what we put into it. Our own plans seem much more beneficial to us.

And I think that this is really what it all boils down to; the discrepancy between what’s good for me and what’s good for someone else. I was trying to avoid it, of course, but one of the biggest controversies that relates to this topic is the concept of abortion. In reading the call of Jeremiah, one of the parts that jumps out to me the most is that even before Jeremiah was a developed fetus he was created with a purpose. He was known to God before he was even known to his mother or father. He was always considered more than just a conglomeration of cells. I would imagine that this isn’t something that’s only applicable to Jeremiah either. We see this being echoed in the Psalms, the foretelling of Samson, Job and Isaiah. This knowledge isn’t specific to Jeremiah, it’s something that is widespread; God knows people before they are born. If God knows them, if they are created with a purpose, if they are more than just a conglomeration of cells, what is the decision that we are making with abortion? In most cases the decision being made is what’s best for me instead of what’s best for the baby. The large majority of reasons cited all deal with the issues that will be facing the mother, things in a woman’s life that would be increasingly inconvenient due to the introduction of a baby. When this becomes the focal point, it trumps the actual issues that are facing the child in question; the fact that this baby that has been known by God, that was created with a purpose are ignored (see tables 2 and 3). It is the ultimate discrepancybetween what is good for me vs what is good for someone else.

In Jeremiah’s call we see the issues that confront us all: how does what God has planned compare with what I have planned? What excuses are we going to give about why we can’t be serving God? What does it look like when I think less about me and more about God?