On Being Chosen

Prophets in the bible have this in common, they were chosen by God. They might not have been the anointed one like Jesus, but they were all chosen. The life of prophets was not always bliss, it was often filled with hardships. Today, many don’t take the time to ponder hard about what it means to be called by the Lord. Some offices like pastors, shepherds, elders, etc. have many that flock to it for the fame, the benefits that come with such positions and dare I say the stability but few take the time to consider their calling seriously. That was not the case with those that the Lord called in the bible times. Many of them did not happily jumped at their calling but wrestled with it, they would have preferred to leave this privilege to someone else. Regardless of it all, I believe it is important to think deep about what it is we are being called to and whether we are being obedient.

For many of the prophets in the bible, in order to walk in their assignment, the Lord had to speak to them over and over again, encouraging them to keep going so that they would know He was with them and was sending them. Jeremiah is one such prophet and one that I empathise with very much simply because he prophesied in the hardest of times (sin was rampant, no one sought the Lord, Judah’s enemies were taking them over) and the prophecies he had to give were simply hard to hear and not enticing. He had to be the lone man, standing on the word of God in a place where everyone was against him, against his message. He had the longest ministry among the prophets and it was probably the least fruitful one as well. He endured scorn, shame, ostracism, and loneliness. At times, it seems as though Jeremiah wanted his life to end simply because life alone was tough, always being against the current was hard. Moreover, being on a death sentence by his own people all the time was probably exhausting. In chapter 20, Jeremiah expresses himself in the same way Job did saying “curse be the day I was born” which seems to indicate he was at its peak and couldn’t take it anymore. Nevertheless, God reminded Jeremiah that He was for him, that He was with Him, that He would protect Him and fight for him many times so that Jeremiah could carry on his mission (Jeremiah1:18-19, 15). Ironically, it is through Jeremiah that God spoke the famous words of chapter 29 which say “for I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you…”. Often times, when the Lord sends a message to his people through a prophet, the message always ministers first to the prophet. Surely the closer you get to God, the closer you experience Him. Experiencing God sometimes comes with hardship because you get to ‘feel’ what He feels; you get to ‘understand’ what He goes through, you get to ‘see’ what it is like to be in His shoes. That was certainly the case with Jeremiah. Before a word was given to him, there was often an action that he had to do. Whether it was making a yoke and tying it to his back or observing a potter do his job, Jeremiah did what the Lord commanded him. It was often after doing the action the Lord had commanded him that the word of God came to Jeremiah. I believe, the point of doing these things was to be in the Lord’s shoes, to understand where He was coming from and what the attitudes of His people meant to Him. The same thing happened to other prophets like Hosea who was told to marry a prostitute so that he would understand what Israel was doing to God by being a prostitute herself. Clearly, some of these actions were very difficult to do and even experiment but that was precisely the point. The closer you get to God, the more He shares Himself with you. The question is, are we willing to experience Him in that manner?

Knowing God entails understanding his heart and part of it includes suffering. But rest assured, even in your suffering, you are never alone; the promise is sure and certain (Deuteronomy 31:6). Just like God was with his prophets and never abandoned them, He will be with you. I believe Paul is one of the few chosen that had lived well with suffering, simply because he spent time being filled by the Lord himself. He always looked heavenward, he was not attached to the things of this world to the point of being so hurt by them, no, in all things he called his sufferings ‘light and momentary’ compared to the eternal glory that far outweighed them (2 Corinthians 4:17). You have to have made Christ your all in all to be able to speak in that manner; the Holy Spirit has to be dwelling in you to speak like that. In my opinion, Paul did what many old prophets did not do, he treasured Christ. One could say he had the advantage of receiving the Holy Spirit and knowing Jesus. Nevertheless, David who did not know Jesus or have the Comforter as we know was very close to God. His heart was devoted to the Lord to the point where he would rather spend one day in God’s presence than a thousand elsewhere (Psalm 84:10). Likewise, for David, enduring trials was nothing compared to the joy of being with the Lord in the end. Unfortunately, many of the old prophets did not seem to have such intimacy with God as displayed in the lives of David and Paul; rather, they looked too closely to their circumstances and to the fact that their prophecies weren’t coming to pass making them look ridiculed in the eyes of the world. But Paul and David show us that when God is your satisfaction, you are able to endure any sort of hardship because He himself fills you up. I pray we can all be like Paul and have the heart of David to be content and full in the Lord. Then we will be what Jeremiah said: “a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit (Jeremiah 17:7-8)”.