Good Morning Friends,
The majority of Jeremiah’s prophecy was gloom
and doom for the people of Judah. The land was to be invaded and conquered by
Nebuchadnezer. The people were to be carried into captivity. But it wasn’t all
negative, there was a hopeful word in his prophecy, too. One day the people
would return. They would come back to the Lord and He would then bring them
back to their land. But it promised to be a long time before the people would
be restored to the land.
It wasn’t too hard to see that troubled times
were ahead. The nation had been in a downward spiral for many years. There were
probably many who weren’t prophets who were giving similar messages of gloom.
Then God gave a strange instruction to
Jeremiah. Jeremiah said, “The word of the LORD came to me: Hanamel son of
Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth,
because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’ Just as the
LORD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and
said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your
right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’ I knew that this was
the word of the LORD; so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel
and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver.” (Jeremiah 32:6-9)
If destruction was coming, why would anyone buy
a field? This was not the time to be making investments, but to be getting rid
of them for whatever you could get out of them. But Jeremiah obeyed God’s
instruction and bought the field.
God’s instruction was a statement that He was
indeed bringing His people back to the land. Jeremiah’s obedience was an act of
faith. Even when it didn’t look like it was a smart move, Jeremiah did what God
told him to do and trusted God with the future.
It’s hard enough to say that we trust God with
the future. Like Jeremiah, do we have enough faith to ACT on what we believe?
His, by Grace, Steve
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