Results of Stupid

I have been asked several times how I do this blog.  Mostly it comes out of my daily devotional time with the Lord or my Bible study, in some cases it is a reaction to something that happened during the course of the journey – actually all of it is the journey filtered through the lens of the Word as well as I am able to do that.

I try not to repeat myself.  So when I want to write about something I search through the existing posts to see if I have already written on the passage or topic.  Often I find that I have written about a certain passage many times, yet each time with a different point.  Today is no exception.

Last March Jeremiah 10 was on my mind.  I just finished working through that chapter again in preparation for three Bible studies in that book.  In the earlier post I focused on Jeremiah 10:1 – 16.  Today 19 – 22.  I am not going to rehash what I wrote last March.

In my understanding of the book thus far the central message of Jeremiah is that rather than come to the Lord for guidance Judah, specifically the leaders of Judah, came up with their own solutions to the problems they created by not coming to the Lord in the first place.  In the Air Force we called that a death spiral.  Einstein called it insanity.

In Jeremiah 10:19 – 22, Jeremiah outlines for us the result of following our own devices, idols, to come up with a solution they are:

• Incurable
• Sickness
• Destroyed 
• Broken
• Scattered
• Desolation

Not a happy list.  Pretty stupid to pursue this.  The problem becomes when we are facing crisis, albeit the making of our own disobedience, something needs to be done.  The dike is leaking.  We have to plug it.  So we act.  We look for solutions.  We plan.  We have meetings that outline strategy to fix the problem.  All of those are idols.  What God requires is that we come to Him.  We turn from our own self-reliance, from hiring people to fix the problem, and we come to Him and stay there.  Trust Him.  Let Him direct.  Then act in obedience to what He directs.

When we have a bias for action, it is hard not to act.  It is hard to turn from our inclination to trust in what we know we can do, and ask God what we should do.

Not to do so is stupid.  At least that is what God says.