Today's Scripture Reading (August 30, 2026): Jeremiah 33
I have to admit that I am amazed at what we
refuse to believe. It does not seem to matter what the event is or was; there
are always those among us who seem willing to disbelieve. Did we actually make
it to the moon (let alone the current plans for a manned expedition to Mars),
or was the whole thing acted out on a Hollywood sound stage? Some of us refuse
to believe that the moon, or any of the planets, are within our reach. Did the
Holocaust happen, or was Hitler guilty of a few atrocities, but nothing like
what he was accused of? In the case of Hitler, maybe it is not surprising that
we still have people who doubt the crimes against humanity that occurred during
the Second World War; after all, that was one of the problems that we had
during the war itself. We heard of the atrocities, but they were so bad that we
had trouble believing that they could be true, that anyone could be so evil as
to be guilty of such acts. What changed many minds was the moment that the
troops entered the first of the concentration camps. In that moment, no matter
what it was that we might have believed, the witness statements of the soldiers
who walked into the camps changed a lot of what we believed forever. However, ultimately,
to believe anything, even the truth, we have to want to believe.
God speaks to Jeremiah and gives him what is,
in fact, a very simple message. Call to me, and I will answer, and I will tell
you of great and unsearchable things. But it only makes sense if we want to
hear the answer and believe.
I remember my granddaughter, back when she was
a toddler, meeting a dog. She was only in contact with the dog for a couple of
minutes, but that was all it took for her to fall in love. But it also made it
hard to let the dog go to his home while my granddaughter needed to make her
way to hers. In that moment, there was no truth that she wanted to hear. All
she wanted was the dog. As I watched her and tried to tell her I loved her and
that life would go on even without the dog she had fallen in love with, I saw
myself in her. I saw my own unwillingness to hear the truth spoken to me, even
when the one who loves me more than I could imagine is the one trying to speak
it.
God is continually speaking the truth into our
lives, but often we can't hear him. It is not that God isn't speaking loudly
enough; we just don't want to hear the words. And while God is answering and
speaking of the wonders of his love, shouting his love to us, we will never
hear it unless we want to hear God's message given to us and want to believe.
Tomorrow's
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 34
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