When Nothing is Working

Sometimes, nothing seems to work. Though they keep telling you to count your blessings if you can, sometimes what keeps coming are just problems. You see others getting blessed but woes just keep coming your way. You believe with all your heart but for what?

Photo by Malachi Cowie on Unsplash.

The prophet Jeremiah once had too much to bear. He could stand it no longer. Everything seemed meaningless and senseless. After all he endured and suffered to live holy for God, the more his life became unbearable. What was God up to? Was this the good plan the Lord had for him? He felt like he was scammed by God.

Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails. [Jeremiah 15]

Deceptive brook, that was how God seemed when His good promises never happened. When all the bad things that are supposed to happen to the wicked are happening to you--even if you believe God's Word with all your heart--you'd feel misled, or worse, swindled. Jeremiah felt deceived by God. "You are to me like a deceptive brook. like a spring that fails."

Imagine a prophet chosen by God even before he was born, to be set apart and appointed "as a prophet to the nations," looking accursed and getting nothing in life but woes and sorrows. This, even if he lived all his life pleasing the Lord and keeping himself holy for Him.

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty. 

17 I never sat in the company of revelers,

never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me

and you had filled me with indignation. 18 Why is my pain unending

and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails.

Anointed servants often suffer like sinners (or even worse), seemingly "punished" by God for whatever purpose, to the extent of looking rebuked, chastised, in grave error, unfavored and far from being blessed due perhaps to some wickedness---despite their good character which is often unseen except by God. Ungodly eyes see nothing but what is obvious to the world. And indeed, mysteriously it is sometimes God's will to "crush" his favored servant, not to punish but to fulfill His mysterious will, to be made a spectacle, to both humans and angels.

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,         [Isaiah 53.]

Obedience doesn't always (or even never) equals good standing in this world. Real favor can be ugly in the eyes of the world (including the worldly church), having been conditioned by the lure of materialism, its drive to accumulate more and abide by the standards of this world, not of the Kingdom. Often, real blessings and favor come in strange packages that our materialistic eyes cannot appreciate. 

Later, God gave the prophet a chance to repent and urged him not to become like the people he thought were blessed, showing what the benefits are of aligning his mindset with that of God. 

“If you repent, I will restore you
that you may serve me;
if you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
you will be my spokesman.
Let this people turn to you,
but you must not turn to them.
20 I will make you a wall to this people,
a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you
but will not overcome you,
for I am with you
to rescue and save you,”
declares the Lord.
21 “I will save you from the hands of the wicked
and deliver you from the grasp of the cruel.”

In the end, we see the prophet repenting, clearly heeding God's word for him to repent. This is intimated when Jeremiah later asked for healing and saving, and also his pursuit of God's will. God will never use an unrepented soul, so it can be safely assumed that Jeremiah indeed repented because God still used him. 

Remember always that, when you explode in anger, frustration and hopelessness, you'd probably say  things unbecoming a servant of God. It's not normal or understandable--never think it's okay--but it happens even to genuine prophets of God. Just make sure you repent and go back to HIS will again.