Take It Back!

Jeremiah 15:10-21 The Message (MSG)

You know where I am, God! Remember what I’m doing here!
    Take my side against my detractors.
Don’t stand back while they ruin me.
    Just look at the abuse I’m taking!
When your words showed up, I ate them—
    swallowed them whole. What a feast!
What delight I took in being yours,
    O God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
I never joined the party crowd
    in their laughter and their fun.
Led by you, I went off by myself.
    You’d filled me with indignation. Their sin had me seething.
But why, why this chronic pain,
    this ever worsening wound and no healing in sight?
You’re nothing, God, but a mirage,
    a lovely oasis in the distance—and then nothing!

^19-21 This is how God answered me:

“Take back those words, and I’ll take you back.
    Then you’ll stand tall before me.
Use words truly and well. Don’t stoop to cheap whining.
    Then, but only then, you’ll speak for me.
Let your words change them.
    Don’t change your words to suit them.



Take it Back!!

It’s Holy Week and the usual sadness has set in.

Holy Week is the culmination of Lent, so it’s appropriate that it should distil misery into a potent vintage. I used to take the whole week off, when I was still working, so that I could allow myself some elbow room to be out of sorts.

This year is even more unsettling because I’m caught in a riptide of change, and I’m being rolled over and over underwater with such force that I have sand in my underwear, and I can’t tell which way is up.

You know the slapstick routine where the guy goes to sit down without looking, and somebody pulls the chair away? Like that, only there’s no floor…. I just keep falling.

It might as well be me, the words of Jeremiah are so exact a description of my own experience:

“Led by you, I went off by myself.

But why, why this chronic pain, this ever worsening wound and no healing in sight? You’re nothing, God, but a mirage, a lovely oasis in the distance—and then nothing!”

And here’s the answer:

Take it back!

You know how to use words truly and well.

Quit whining, because when you’re whining that’s all you can pay attention to!

You can speak for me, if you want to!

It doesn’t matter whether you feel like shit about everything or not!

So, do you want to stand up straight and not be afraid?

If so, don’t change your words to please people!

If you do, your words will have no power to change anything or anyone.

Get your head on straight!



Okay, Okay!

I get it!