Pretence In Seeking God's Will

As I've said before, I've been reading the book of Jeremiah and I wanted to share an interesting story today from chapters 42 and 43.

So at this point in the book of Jeremiah, the Kingdom of Judah has been captured and the people taken into captivity. The King of Babylon leaves a very small number of poor people (the remnant) in Judah to work in the fields and vineyards.

There's soon a rebellion by a man named Ishmael, who kills the governor appointed by the King of Babylon to watch over the people, and takes the people as captives to Ammon. Luckily, a man called Johanan and all his other army officers rescue the people from Ishmael and proceed to return the people back. They inquire of the prophet Jeremiah as to whether to return Judah or go to Egypt to escape the Babylonians. Now note what they say because it's quite interesting.

Jeremiah 42:5-6 NIV

"Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.”

After making such a promise, Jeremiah seeks God's answer to their question and what God tells them is that, if they go to Egypt, they'll die. But if they stay in Judah, God will allow them to prosper despite the fact that they are still in captivity under Babylon.

You'd think after hearing that, Johanan and all the people of Judah would return home. But their words after hearing God's command are completely contrary to their initial promise to obey whatever God would tell them to do.

Jeremiah 43:2-3 NIV

Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to settle there.’ But Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to hand us over to the Babylonians, so they may kill us or carry us into exile to Babylon.”

And verse 7 says that they took the people to Egypt in disobedience to the word of God and even captured Jeremiah to take him with them. I mean, if they wanted to disobey God they should have done it on their own. No need to drag God's prophet along to suffer with them.

Anyway, my initial thoughts after reading this was, 'What on earth was wrong with Johanan and the army officers?' They were the same ones who said they would obey whatever God would say but after hearing God's verdict, they decided that they didn't like it and would do their own thing. They even had the guts to call Jeremiah a liar after they asked him to enquire from God on their behalf. They went to him, he didn't go to them.

I read the Bible commentary for this story and realised that, even when Johanan and the officers were asking Jeremiah to enquire from God, they had already purposed in their heart to go to Egypt. They just wanted God's go-ahead first, but when they didn't get it, they stuck to choosing their way instead of God's way. In Egypt, they would be free from the power of the Babylonians and life would seem better than being stuck in Judah working for their captors. But what they didn't know was that God was going to use Babylon to attack Egypt, so going back to Judah would have kept them safe.

But they weren't willing to obey God's Will, even though He knew what was best.

A lot of the time, we find ourselves in this situation. It's easy to read stories in the Bible and point out the mistakes of various Bible characters, not knowing that we do the same in our every day life. We often times ask God to bless our own plans instead of seeking His. We want Him to give us the go ahead to do something we've already purposed in our hearts to do, even though that's not what He wants for us.

Just like Johanan, we find ourselves saying with our mouths that we will obey God's will no matter what, but when He shows us what He has in store for us, we're not willing to comply, especially when it seems that there's an easier and much better route to take than God's Way.

I hope we can learn to submit ourselves fully to God's Will for our lives, not just with our mouths, but with our hearts too. It might not always be pleasant, but it's always worth it in the end.

Set your focus on the bigger prize and not on the immediate rewards on the way.

Hope you enjoyed today's post. Feel free to leave your views in the comments below or email/message me what you think about the story of Johanan and the people's disobedience to God's Word. Have an amazing day and weekend lovelies!

Stay blessed and stay a blessing.