Transformed by the Weeping Prophet – how God used Jeremiah to change the way I pray

(by Paula, Eurasia)

When I was asked to try and write about my journey with the book of Jeremiah, I must admit to having some feelings of hesitation… it meant revisiting what for me was painful growth – even if it was a good struggle!

The book of Jeremiah accompanied me as I was trying to work through some difficult family memories and intergenerational hurt. Jeremiah’s call and life were of course different to my own, but Jeremiah’s story, and in particular his relationship with God over several decades, called me to deeper discipleship as I met with the Living God in these ‘texts of disaster’.

Jeremiah was called in youth and weakness to preach to rebellious Israel. He endured what looked like fruitless ministry as well as loneliness, imprisonment and mockery. Despite the personal toll, Jeremiah kept going: in relationship with God, loving his own people (while tearing his hair out!) and serving the God of hope even when he could not see how salvation could come.

How do you speak to God when the usual frameworks of familiarity and survival are opened up, pulled apart and shown to be no more than straw? What words can you reach for when you hit those moments of despair?

Jeremiah’s poetic descriptions of God (eg 2:13, 2:32, 18:6, 50:44) and his colourful, unrestrained, honest, even rude, complaints to God (his ‘confessions’ throughout chapters 11-20) were like a can opener – opening me up to my own pain and enabling me in raw honesty to bring my own experience to God in words I had not dared to pray before. Perhaps my British reserve had held me back, or maybe I hadn’t really wanted to deal with some of those deep struggles that God loves to redeem?

I needed to learn the language of lament – beyond praise and petition, to engage with God in the reality of pain and struggle. I needed the reassurance that the God I meet in Jeremiah – robust and unthreatened by the fist-waving of His people – is the same God who brought hope and transformation to His people in Christ. I began to call on God to be to me who He says He is.

The bitterness of Jeremiah’s experience with his people, and his struggle with, not against, God, taught me to grieve past wrongs in my family. I was able to mourn what was lost and allow myself to feel sorrow over injustice – not allowing the old order of things to continue, at least not in my own heart. The book of Jeremiah shows us that as believers, we call on a God who is able to transform the hearts of people; the Living God can bring newness out of nothingness, repentance out of rebellion, right living after regret.

Books for further reading:
Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile.
Eugene H. Peterson, Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best.