Jeremiah 42

As a mostly impatient person, I couldn’t get over the sequence of events in this chapter. After the disturbing events of last chapter, all the people left in Israel came to Jeremiah to ask for counsel from the Lord. They were so eager to hear His word, they made an oath to obey: “Then they said to Jeremiah, ‘May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.’” (vs 5-6)

Okay, so the Israelite oath didn’t carry a whole lot of weight in those days. But, at least, the people seemed more ready than they had been in a long time to listen to what God had to say.

And what happened next? “Ten days later the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.” (vs 7) Ten days later?! You mean, after all that urgency, after the people themselves sought out the Lord to hear His voice, He made them wait ten days?!

As I thought more about this, I realized that this has often been my experience with God as well. It seems that I am forever waiting on Him. Perhaps the major job of a follower of God is to wait. We so often want to get on with things, to get busy—to go, go, go, and do, do, do. But maybe God just wants us to wait.

Maybe that’s why it is written that God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps 46:10) Maybe the knowing part can’t come without the being still. Maybe it’s when we wait, when we slow down and stop what we’re doing to take note of what God is doing, that we remember that the world doesn’t have to rest on our shoulders. It isn’t up to us. It doesn’t all depend on us. We were made to rest, not to worry.

God often says, “Wait,” because so often, we are ready to run ahead of Him. I think we frequently substitute our plans for His plan—even when we don’t know we’re doing it. We get one little whiff of the direction He’s going to have us go, and we’re off and running down the path, leaving Him far behind in a cloud of dust.

We say we want to hear God’s voice, but are we willing to wait one day? Five? Ten? Fifty? Waiting is so hard, especially when we’re fired up for the Kingdom, wanting to do great things for God! But maybe the greatest thing we can do sometimes is wait.

Maybe what we need—more than being active—is to be still.