10.27.2014 Old Testament: Jer 20.14–18

To read the Bible in a year, read Jeremiah 20–22 on October 27, In the year of our Lord 2014

By Don Ruhl

When Job lost everything, he no longer desired to live, wishing even that he had never been born, or that since he had been born, if he could have died shortly thereafter. Jeremiah thought the same way, because he did what the Lord said to do, but the people rejected the prophet and persecuted him,

Cursed be the day in which I was born!
Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!
Let the man be cursed
Who brought news to my father, saying,
“A male child has been born to you!”
Making him very glad.
And let that man be like the cities
Which the Lord overthrew, and did not relent;
Let him hear the cry in the morning
And the shouting at noon,
Because he did not kill me from the womb,
That my mother might have been my grave,
And her womb always enlarged with me.
Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow,
That my days should be consumed with shame?
(Jeremiah 20.14–18) 

When you do your best, giving it your all, but you do not see results, you wonder why you have put out all the effort. Life no longer has joy, but only sorrow for you. Yet, Jeremiah stayed with the Lord, and we are glad that the prophet did, because he blessed us with his great Book.