Blind Faith

08/25/11

Jeremiah 37.3 King Zedekiah, however, sent Jehukal son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: “Please pray to the LORD our God for us.” NIV

Sometimes it really sucks to be used. It really, really sucks when a despotic ruler (or a boss or an authority figure) uses you to accomplish their manipulation. Enter Jeremiah; and a whiny ruler who dispatched his yes-men to get the prophet to pray for him in hope that somehow God would overlook his evil and pathetic behavior and give him what he wanted. False humility is really ugly. And annoying.

King Zedekiah wasn’t willing to pray for himself because God wasn’t really his God. God might’ve been one of his gods, but He wasn't his God-God. Funny thing is, God doesn’t play well with others (gods that is). There are no other Gods! Oh yes, people think there are, and hope there are, and act like there are; but there ain’t no other gods! I guess Zedekiah got some style points for saying please.

Lately, I’ve been hearing my prayer life; it’s pathetic. Fortunately, I’ve yet to stoop to the level of not praying at all and expecting God to somehow superstitiously come through. But the sum of my prayers of late has been selfishness and annoyingly pleading in desperation for God to make it all better. But without pain I’ll never grow in grace. I’m not saying God is beating up on me; He’s just not giving in to my whining.

Zedekiah whined up until the day Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon killed his entire family right in front of his eyes, and then poked his eyes out. Zedekiah was dragged off to Babylon in chains where he died blind and alone. That’s where whining’ll getcha. Maybe the king of Babylon won’t kill your hope and poke the eyes of your faith out but sin, self, and satan will.

And so as I listen to my whiny prayers, I seem to be saying I’m blind and all alone. My prayers aren’t victorious, they are victimized – at least in my blindness. All Zedekiah had to do was listen to Jeremiah whom he so desperately wanted to pray for him so he could get the answer he wanted from God: “This is what the LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live. But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from them.’”

All I have to do is submit to God and obey Him. I can ill-afford to let my circumstances force me to lose my focus on the Almighty, because when I do, I end up blinded by my circumstances and wandering around in helplessness and hopelessness. The problem is sometimes God asks me to do things I don’t want to do – like trust Him. I don’t have to trust Him; I am fully capable of trusting in myself but oh man, watch out when I do – it ain’t pretty.

It all boils down to this: God is at work in my life and expects me to cooperate with Him in the process. Whenever I get to thinkin’ that the process ain’t working then I need to immediately repent and seek God’s forgiveness for blindly doubting in His power and presence.

Things would’ve gone way better for Zedekiah had only he done that…