“The Lord’s word has brought me nothing but insult and injury, constantly. I thought, I’ll forget him; I’ll no longer speak in his name. But there’s an intense fire in my heart, trapped in my bones. I’m drained trying to contain it; I’m unable to do it.” Jeremiah 20:8b, 9 (Common English Bible)
Pressed into the hearts of those preparing for Christian ministry are these, or similar, words: “Pastors and chaplains must maintain a ‘non-anxious presence’ among those they serve.” There is sound wisdom in the instruction; those who seek our care desire that we are strong when they are weak, steady when their world is shaken, and confident in faith when they struggle with doubt. It is an exercise of professional management—the management of the engine room behind the professional facade. And it is a façade. Pastors and chaplains are not cut from a different cloth than everyone else—not cut from a cloth that is finer and sturdier than what is common to other people. Ministry professionals experience the same moods as those we care for in our offices, in their homes, and at the bedside. It was so with great characters who populate the pages of our Bibles. Take the prophet Jeremiah, for example. In this teaching from the twentieth chapter, Jeremiah wanted to quit ministry. As he puts it, the vocation of serving God has brought nothing but insult and injury. Constantly!
Jeremiah had his share of moods. Carefully read the Book of Jeremiah, and one will discover that tears appear often. In fact, many biblical scholars reference Jeremiah as the “weeping prophet.” Jeremiah was no different from many people who occasionally find emotions welling up. Often the result are eyes becoming “a fountain of tears.”[i] Jeremiah continues to say that if his head were a spring of water, he would weep day and night for the wounds of his people. Nor is this any different from you, me, or anyone else. We all have crying moods. A man in my office said, “I am tired—as a child is tired at the end of the day. But I wake in the morning with the same weariness. I am tired of being tired and crying all the time.” It may be helpful to recall that Jesus wept. Crying is natural unless it becomes excessive and disrupts life.
Jeremiah also had his moods of depression—on one occasion becoming so depressed that he cursed the day he was born.[ii] In the depths of his depression, Jeremiah sought to remove any blessing his mother may have experienced at his birth. He found himself wishing curses upon the one who brought word of his birth to his father. Jeremiah wished he had been born dead![iii] Such people have sat in my office. Hopelessness threatens to suffocate them, which would satisfy their desire for death. What word of comfort or encouragement can a pastor or chaplain bring in such a moment? Just this, that they are told that they have been heard, that they are loved and cared for, and sharing with them Jeremiah’s story. Jeremiah sat where they now sit, and then stood, despite it all, and became useful to God. A steadying sense of God’s presence makes possible the greeting of a new day.
Other moods that haunted Jeremiah included disgust, cynicism, and vindictiveness, each of which had the potential to disrupt life. While much has changed in the world since the time of biblical characters, people are the same. A thousand more years may pass, and people will remain the same. The fundamental problems that Jeremiah wrestled with confront people today and will tomorrow. Therefore, there is guidance located in looking at the life of Jeremiah and discovering there what helped him to overthrow disruptive moods. The clearest is in our passage above, the conviction that God has intended Jeremiah for a great work, “there’s an intense fire in my heart, trapped in my bones. I’m drained trying to contain it; I’m unable to do it.” Jeremiah moved the focus from himself to God. With this new focus, Jeremiah recovered his great love for people, was strengthened in his conviction that God was still present and working in the world, and finally, that life would be lived by God’s power, not his own. Moods would still come and go, but no longer would they have a disruptive power over his life.
Joy,
[i] Jeremiah 9:1
[ii] Jeremiah 20:14
[iii] Jeremiah 20:17
Nurture Faith with Dr. Doug Hood 