Too Good to Believe

9/8/2016

Jeremiah 42.10-12 10 ‘If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I have relented concerning the disaster I have inflicted on you. 11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear. Do not be afraid of him, declares the Lord, for I am with you and will save you and deliver you from his hands. 12 I will show you compassion so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your land.’ – God

I am fascinated with the concept of being counter-intuitive, or going against conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom, more often than not, is purely going with the flow – right, wrong, indifferent, it is just going along with what is always done because it has always been done.

From the very beginning of the Bible God demonstrates that He is counter to what everyone else in creation thinks as normal or conventional. God’s creation of man was, at some point, somewhere, shocking to the realms in which God rules. Aghast, with an enormous intake of breath, might be the descriptor for the reaction to what God unveiled to the heavenly host who wondered what He was up to.

Even man, wonder that he is, has wondered: God, who are we that You even think of us? (Psalm 8.4) Kramer calls nature a mad scientist; I don’t think nature holds a candle to what God is up to… Man wants predictable; God creates unconventional. I think that is why God is called, Holy; He is not like the other gods, the gods of man’s creating. God is other.

The people of Jeremiah’s day had made up their minds that they knew what is best for them. That sounds a lot like us – we’ve pretty much decided that we know what to do and how to do it. We come up with things like earth-speak and insist that all of us use it and know what it means. We come up with earth-culture and expect everyone, regardless of race or creed, to kowtow. I read an article last night about this thing called, Burning Man. I just shook my head in amazement.

God told Jeremiah to tell the Jews, to stay put. They came to Jeremiah and asked him to intercede for them and when he did, they didn’t like what he said – it wasn’t good enough for them. It was goodness and kindness from the Lord, but it wasn’t good enough. The narrative says, So they entered Egypt in disobedience to the Lord and went as far as Tahpanhes. (Jeremiah 43.7)

Sometimes unconventional is uncomfortable. I think that is man’s biggest problem: he can’t predict unconventional. I think that is largely one of the biggest reasons for unbelief: an unconventional God.

The God who says, stay put, when everything inside you screams, RUN! is an unconventional God. He says things that are too good to believe to the conventional thinker. I imagine Jeremiah wanted to scream. I imagine he wanted to rip his hair out. I think he wept bitterly that this unconventional God sent him to say unconventional things to conventional thinkers who knew (in their own thinking) that they knew what was best. Their move to Egypt (Jeremiah 42-44) didn’t end well.

Father God, You are my God and You are unconventional. You are counter-intuitive. Your word says Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and Your ways are not my ways. Help me to trust You and to learn to be a bit more unconventional myself. Help me to trust You that if I stay with You, You will build me up and not tear me down. I believe You have created me to be like You: unconventional. May it be – amen.