Day 180: Wasted Conquest

Jeremiah 46:7-12

“Who is this who rises up like the Nile,
like rivers whose waters surge?
Egypt rises up like the Nile,
like rivers whose waters surge.
He says, ‘I will rise up. I will cover the earth.
I will destroy cities and its inhabitants.’
Go up, you horses!
Rage, you chariots!
Let the mighty men go out:
Cush and Put, who handle the shield;
and the Ludim, who handle and bend the bow.
For that day is of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies,
a day of vengeance,
that he may avenge himself of his adversaries.
The sword will devour and be satiated,
and will drink its fill of their blood;
for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.
Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt.
You use many medicines in vain.
There is no healing for you.
The nations have heard of your shame,
and the earth is full of your cry;
for the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty,
they both fall together.”

While working as a software engineer, I spent a lot of time learning about wasted effort. In software, we don’t waste materials when we make mistakes. What we do waste is our own time and effort as well as the time and effort of our investors and our customers. We do that when we make bad decisions. It’s possible to charge down the road of success, only to find that you are harming yourself and others because you are fighting against reality.

Jeremiah records for us that Egypt was going to make an attempt to take over the world. God told them to go right ahead and try. Instead of taking over the world, they were going to fall. It even tells the medical workers to go ahead and try to use their medicine to heal people. Even that was going to fail. Egypt was about to waste their efforts. It even tells us here that “the earth is full of your cry.” It’s one thing to make a private mistake, but Egypt’s mistakes were going to be high-profile.

I see a lesson for us in this. No matter how big and powerful we are, it is possible for us to take on something that will destroy us. God is the one who defines reality and because of this, our success is in His hands, not in our own. Our big idea shouldn’t be to take over the world, but to simply do what God wants us to do today. Then, when He takes over the world, we will be glad we helped. There’s no waste in that.

Day 131: Our Heavenly Father

Jeremiah 31:7-14

For Yahweh says,
“Sing with gladness for Jacob,
and shout for the chief of the nations.
Publish, praise, and say,
‘Yahweh, save your people,
the remnant of Israel!’
Behold, I will bring them from the north country,
and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth,
along with the blind and the lame,
the woman with child and her who travails with child together.
They will return as a great company.
They will come with weeping.
I will lead them with petitions.
I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters,
in a straight way in which they won’t stumble;
for I am a father to Israel.
Ephraim is my firstborn.

“Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations,
and declare it in the distant islands. Say,
‘He who scattered Israel will gather him,
and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’
For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob,
and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
They will come and sing in the height of Zion,
and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh,
to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil,
and to the young of the flock and of the herd.
Their soul will be as a watered garden.
They will not sorrow any more at all.
Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance;
the young men and the old together;
for I will turn their mourning into joy,
and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness,
and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.

Modern secular culture has to ignore many obvious human needs in order to maintain its composure and one of those things is mankind’s need for hope. From an evolutionary perspective, mankind doesn’t really have a basis for hope because they believe that mankind was produced by accident. There’s no reason to believe that mankind’s existence at the top of the food chain will remain. The same accidents that produced man could also produce something else in the future. There’s no reason to think that some other thing won’t become more fit for survival in the future. This kind of nonsense is not found in the Bible, of course. Instead, what we find are things like we read here.

The truth of the matter is that God is the Creator and His decisions are all that is required to make things happen. We have been reading about the fact that God intended to make terrible things happen to Israel because they had chosen to walk away from Him, but at the same time, He said things like this. He makes it clear to Israel that He intends to bring them back in the future. Not only will He bring them back, they are to enjoy prosperity, peace and joy. Even before He sends them into captivity, He makes this clear. This message inserts something precious into their minds. Whenever they consider the horrible situation that God forced them into, they will also have the memory that this same God will force them back into their own land and “they will not sorrow any more at all.” That’s what I call: hope technology. God wasn’t intending to simply torment His people. He intended to save them.

Not only is mankind not the product of a series of accidents, they were created by a Father. Israel is a glorious example to Gentiles like us. A father doesn’t torture His children. His intent in punishing them is to make them thrive as he removes error from their lives and sets them up for the future. What we see in this example is God saying: “I am a father to Israel.” He then goes on to explain their final end. Israel’s Father has dedicated Himself to their success and that’s exactly what they will have. As Christians we have this same Father. When Jesus taught us to pray by saying: “Our father who is in heaven…”, He said that we should start by remembering this fact. We go through a lot of problems in our lives too, but we can count on the fact that our Father is dedicated to our success just like He shows us with Israel.