Bright: to be Jeremiah

Friday, May 5, 2023
Meditation:
    [Jeremiah:] Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends! I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.
    —Jeremiah 15:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Jeremiah refutes the popular, modern notion that the end of religion is an integrated personality, freed of its fears, its doubts, and its frustrations. Certainly Jeremiah was no integrated personality. It is doubtful if... he ever knew the meaning of the word “peace.” We have no evidence that his internal struggle was ever ended, although the passing years no doubt brought an increasing acceptance of destiny. Jeremiah, if his “confessions” are any index, needed a course in pastoral psychiatry in the very worst way... The feeling cannot be escaped that if Jeremiah had been integrated, it would have been at the cost of ceasing to be Jeremiah! A man at peace simply could not be a Jeremiah. Spiritual health is good; mental assurance is good; but the summons of faith is neither to an integrated personality nor to the laying by of all questions, but to the dedication of personality—with all its fears and questions—to its duty and destiny under God.
    ... John Bright (1908-1995), The Kingdom of God, Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1953, p. 120 (see the book)
    See also Jer. 15:10; 9:25-26; Hos. 1:2; Matt. 10:34-36; Luke 12:49-53; John 7:40-49; Acts 14:1-6; Rom. 2:28-29; 2 Cor. 11:23-27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I lay my faults before You as a sacrifice. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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