I’m being self indulgent. That’s what it really boils down to.
A few days ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about the book of Jeremiah. She’s been studying the prophets, and she had a few questions. I got a voice memo from her asking specific questions about Jeremiah 1.
In Jeremiah 1:11, the Lord begins asking the prophet what he sees and using these visions to point to what God will do in the future. Her question was “How do you know what God is doing when you don’t have the visions?” It’s a fair enough question, given the biblical study she was doing. But is it the best thing to ask?
There’s a lot to unpack in her question. First of all, there’s an implication in the question that Jeremiah only knew what was going to happen because of the visions. Therefore, how will we know without visions?
How do you know what God is doing when you don’t have the visions?
This is something I like to call an applied assumption about scripture, meaning there is first an assumption made, then universally applied. But scripture isn’t always meant to be universally applied. Let’s break this down.
The assumption made in this line of questioning is that God will always give vision when he wants you to do something. Wrong. Most of the time, He will not. The application of this incorrect assumption is that we need vision to take action. Wrong again.
Jeremiah 1:1-10 sets the stage here. God called Jeremiah to the office of prophet in verse 5: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Scripture isn’t always meant to be universally applied.
There is universal truth in this verse: God knew each of us before we were born, and He set each of us apart for a purpose. We know this is universal because other parts of scripture support this idea (Psalm 139, for example). But being appointed as a prophet to the nations? Yeah, that part was just for Jeremiah.
Now that we have that cleared up… the visions Jeremiah was getting were the direct result of his call as a prophet. Fish swim because they are fish, but the fact that you sometimes swim too does not mean you are also a fish. Jeremiah received visions because he was a prophet. But not everyone who gets a vision from God holds the office of prophet.
Jeremiah received visions because he was a prophet. But not everyone who gets a vision from God holds the office of prophet.
Sometimes there is a vision; other times, there is only an instruction: Go to the land that I’ll show you, said God to Abram (Genesis 12:1). Abram didn’t have the luxury of a vision first – God literally said “I will show you,” not “I have shown you.”
We over complicate things. Our job is just to obey what God says. That’s all. We don’t have to wait until we see it. We don’t have to align our spiritual vision with God’s explanation and make sure every puzzle piece is in place before we take a step.
We over complicate things. Our job is just to obey what God says. That’s all.
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