Jeremiah 44 Devotional

Reading Hard Times Backward

“Because you burned incense and sinned against the LORD and did not obey the voice of the LORD or walk in His instruction, His statutes, and His testimonies, this disaster has befallen you, as you see today.””Jeremiah 44:23 (BSB)

In Egypt, God reminds the Judeans through Jeremiah that Jerusalem lies in ruins because the people kept burning incense to other gods, though prophet after prophet pleaded with them (44:2-6). Why would they bring the same harm on themselves in Egypt (44:7-8)?

Their defiant answer rests on their own reading of events. When they made offerings to the Queen of Heaven, they had plenty of food and saw no trouble. Since they stopped, they have lacked everything (44:17-18). To them, the disaster proved the idol right and the prophets wrong. Jeremiah reads the same history the other way. The LORD remembered their offerings, and the ruin came because he could no longer bear their evil (44:21-23). The good years had been God's patience, not the idol's reward. Paul warns against treating God's kindness and patience lightly, since that kindness is meant to turn people back to him (Romans 2:4). Circumstances do not interpret themselves. God's word gives a truer reading of both the good years and the hard ones.

To think about: How have you been interpreting your recent good or hard times, and what would it look like to read them in light of God's word?