Held in the Struggle

Jeremiah 15:15-21 (NIV)

Jeremiah 15:15–21 NIV

Lord, you understand; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering—do not take me away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake. When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty. I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails. Therefore this is what the Lord says: “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them. I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you,” declares the Lord. “I will save you from the hands of the wicked and deliver you from the grasp of the cruel.”

When faithfulness hurts

There are moments in the Christian life when you do the right thing—and life gets harder.

You pray, and nothing changes. You forgive, but the relationship remains strained. You serve faithfully, but nobody seems to notice. You raise your children in the faith, but you cannot make them believe. You ask God for healing, and the diagnosis remains.

We know what to do when suffering follows foolishness. At least then we can trace the line. We made a destructive decision, and now we are living with the consequences. But what do we do when suffering follows faithfulness? What do we do when we have tried to obey God, and obedience has not made life easier?

[Pause]

Many of us have learned how to speak faithfully about God even when we are struggling to speak honestly to God. We know what we are supposed to say: ‘God is good. Everything happens for a reason. I am blessed.’ Those words may be true. But sometimes we use true words to conceal what is actually happening inside us.

We smile. We shake hands. We say, ‘I’m doing fine.’ We keep serving. We keep functioning. But beneath all of that, a quieter question has begun to form: God, where are you?

[Pause]

Jeremiah does not conceal that question. He has heard from God. He has delighted in God’s word. He has obeyed his calling. And now he is going to tell God exactly what that obedience has cost him.

Jeremiah is living before the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon. Judah has repeatedly turned away from God. Jeremiah calls the people to repentance and warns that judgment is coming. But they do not want to hear it. Other prophets contradict him. The message God gave Jeremiah has made him an outsider among his own people.

And that is important, because Jeremiah is not suffering because he ignored God’s call. He is suffering because he answered it.

He reminds God, ‘When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight’ (Jeremiah 15:16, NIV). Jeremiah did not reluctantly tolerate God’s word. He consumed it. He delighted in it. He knew that God had called him by name.

But the same word that delighted him also separated him. Jeremiah says, ‘I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me’ (Jeremiah 15:17, NIV). The word tasted sweet, but the calling became bitter.

Finally, Jeremiah says the thing faithful people are not supposed to say: [Passionate] ‘Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails’ (Jeremiah 15:18, NIV).

Jeremiah looks at God and says, in effect, ‘I thought I would see the benefit. I trusted you. I followed you. But when I needed you, it felt as if the stream had dried up.’

This is Jeremiah at the wall. The ways he has previously understood God and his calling no longer seem able to carry him. He cannot see what God is doing. And his suffering is beginning to reshape what he believes about God.

Lament honestly

The first thing this passage gives us is permission to tell God the truth about our struggle.

Jeremiah names his persecution. He names his loneliness. He names his anger. He names his unending pain. He even names his disappointment with God. And God allows this prayer to be prayed. More than that, God allows it to become part of Scripture.

Biblical lament is not turning away from God in pain. Biblical lament is turning toward God with pain.

Faith is not pretending you have no questions. Faith is continuing to bring your questions to God because, somewhere beneath the anger and confusion, you still believe he is listening. Jeremiah’s words are severe, but notice where he takes them. He takes them to God.

Some of us are not in danger of saying too much to God. We are in danger of saying nothing real to God. Our prayers are polite, rehearsed, and completely disconnected from what is happening in our souls.

Maybe you are learning to live with an empty chair. Maybe your body no longer lets you do what it once did. Maybe caregiving has left you exhausted. Maybe you have prayed for a child or grandchild who has walked away from faith. Maybe you are raising young children while tired and stretched thin.

The invitation of this passage is not to pretend that wound is gone. The invitation is to bring the wound into the presence of God.

Scripture gives us words such as, ‘How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?’ (Psalm 13:1, NIV). Jesus himself prayed in Gethsemane, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me’ (Matthew 26:39, NIV). From the cross he prayed, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:46, NIV).

Honest pain does not frighten God. Jesus has carried human anguish into the presence of the Father.

So perhaps the beginning of prayer for you today is not an impressive prayer. Perhaps it is one honest sentence: ‘Lord, what hurts is…’

What hurts is that I miss them. What hurts is that I tried. What hurts is that I am tired. What hurts is that I do not understand why you allowed this. What hurts is that I do not know whether anything is changing.

Then perhaps a second sentence: ‘And because this hurts, I am tempted to believe…’

That second sentence matters because pain has a voice. And when pain remains long enough, it begins to interpret everything.

See clearly

God receives Jeremiah’s honesty. But God loves Jeremiah too much to let his pain become the only voice telling him what is true.

God answers, ‘If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman’ (Jeremiah 15:19, NIV).

This is where the passage becomes uncomfortable. We may want God simply to affirm Jeremiah. Instead, God corrects him. God does not say that Jeremiah’s pain is imaginary. He does not shame Jeremiah for being tired. But neither does God agree that he has been a deceptive stream.

There are precious words in Jeremiah’s prayer. He turns toward God. He names his suffering. He remembers how he delighted in God’s word. He asks God to act. He refuses to pretend.

But there are also worthless words. Jeremiah begins to justify himself as though God has nothing to correct. He allows rejection to define him. He lets God’s delay become evidence that God is unreliable. His pain is telling the truth about his wound, but it is not telling the whole truth about his God.

Grief says, ‘Nothing will ever be good again.’ Anxiety says, ‘If I do not control this, everything will collapse.’ Shame says, ‘If people really knew me, they would leave.’ Disappointment says, ‘God did not do what I asked, so God cannot be trusted.’ Exhaustion says, ‘Because I cannot do what I once did, I have nothing left to offer.’

These voices often begin with something real. Something is uncertain. Something has been lost. Something has gone wrong. But then pain reaches beyond naming the wound and tries to name God for us.

God says to Jeremiah, ‘Separate the worthy from the worthless. Let me tell you what is true.’

And notice this: God’s correction is not rejection. God corrects Jeremiah precisely because God has not given up on him. ‘If you repent, I will restore you’ (Jeremiah 15:19, NIV). In other words: ‘Jeremiah, your pain has not disqualified you. But you cannot let your pain become your prophet.’

There have been seasons in my life when anxiety has shaped the way I saw almost everything. I could still work. I could still pray publicly. I could still say theologically correct things. From the outside, I could keep functioning. But internally, anxiety was narrating the world for me.

Anxiety told me that if I could anticipate every outcome, work hard enough, or control enough details, I could keep everything from falling apart. Because those thoughts were happening inside me, I could mistake them for the truth.

One of the places God has brought healing has been through being part of a band—a small group of Christians where we confess sin, name what is happening in our souls, ask one another honest questions, and pray for one another.

Confession did not make every anxious thought disappear. My band did not solve me. But when I spoke honestly, anxiety no longer had to remain hidden. When my brothers listened, prayed, asked questions, and reminded me of what was true, I found myself drawn closer to God.

This is one reason discipleship cannot remain a private arrangement between ‘me and Jesus.’ Sometimes God separates the precious from the worthless through the faithful voice of another Christian. Sometimes God’s answer to our isolation is a brother or sister who will listen without flinching and love us enough to tell us the truth.

Return faithfully

God does not only correct Jeremiah’s vision. He restores Jeremiah’s vocation. ‘You will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them’ (Jeremiah 15:19, NIV).

The language recalls Jeremiah’s original call. God is saying, ‘Stand before me again. Speak the word I have given you again. Do not allow the people’s rejection to reshape your message or your identity.’

Jeremiah cannot make Judah repent. He cannot force anyone to listen. His responsibility is not visible success. His responsibility is faithfulness.

That distinction matters. Parents cannot force their children to believe, but they can pray, love, listen, repent, and bear faithful witness. Grandparents can bless, mentor, and intercede. Caregivers cannot control another person’s health, but they can offer loving presence and receive help. Young parents may not build an elaborate devotional routine, but they can practice the next faithful act: one prayer, one apology, one Bible story, one tired Sunday in worship.

God does not ask us to manufacture outcomes that only grace and another person’s response can produce. God calls us to be faithful with the life, relationships, and responsibilities we have been given.

And returning to the call does not always mean returning to the same role, the same pace, or the same responsibility. Sometimes faithfulness means resting. Sometimes it means asking for help. Sometimes it means releasing a ministry you once carried so that you can receive a new way to serve.

On our discipleship pathway, we have named a place called the Wall. The Wall is a season when the ways we have previously related to God no longer seem to carry us. Prayer feels dry. The answers that once satisfied us feel inadequate. We feel stalled, bitter, confused, or disappointed. We cannot see what God is doing.

The Wall is not necessarily evidence that discipleship has failed. It may be the place where God is inviting us into a deeper, more honest, and more surrendered relationship with him. And most of us will encounter that wall more than once.

But we are not meant to face it alone.

That is why our pathway includes more than attending worship. We need classes where Scripture teaches us to recognize God’s voice; bands where confession brings what is hidden into the light; mentors who help us discern the next faithful step; and worship and Holy Communion to root us again in grace we receive rather than manufacture.

God’s restoring grace often reaches us through another member of Christ’s body.

If you are at the Wall, your next step may not be another task. It may be telling one mature Christian, ‘I am struggling, and I need someone to walk with me.’ It may be joining a class, entering a band, asking for a mentor, or receiving the care you have spent years giving to others.

Or perhaps you are in a season of strength. Then your calling may be to notice someone at the Wall and walk beside them with listening, truth, prayer, and steady presence.

Jeremiah is called to return. But he is not told to return in his own strength.

Why did Jesus have to die?

If the message is only, ‘Be honest about your pain, correct your perspective, and try serving again,’ then we do not need a cross. We need a journal, a good friend, and a little more determination. Those may all be gifts from God, but they cannot save us.

Our problem is deeper than confusion. The deeper problem is sin. When suffering exposes us, we discover hearts that turn inward. We distrust God, justify ourselves, wound others, seek control, and abandon love when it becomes costly. We cannot sort the precious from the worthless by ourselves because the distortion is within us.

Jeremiah is a faithful prophet, but even Jeremiah needs restoring grace. And so do we.

Jesus came as the truly faithful one. Where Jeremiah faltered beneath rejection, Jesus remained obedient. Where our words become corrupted by fear and self-protection, Jesus spoke the truth in love. Where we turn away when the calling becomes costly, Jesus ‘humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross’ (Philippians 2:8, NIV).

But Jesus did not die merely to give us an example of endurance. On the cross, he bore the sin that separates us from God and corrupts our loves. ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV). He carried our guilt, self-justification, faithlessness, and the worthless words by which we have misnamed God and wounded one another.

At the cross, Jesus entered the deepest experience of abandonment and cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:46, NIV). He went to the farthest reaches of human suffering so that no place of pain would remain a place where God could not meet us.

And on the third day, the Father raised him from the dead. The resurrection declares that sin, suffering, and death do not have the final word. Jesus lives, and through the Holy Spirit he does more than forgive our past. He restores the image of God in us. He heals our distorted loves. He forms truthful speech within us. He returns us to communion with God and sends us back into the world as people capable of holy love.

This is why grace is more than God telling Jeremiah to try again. Grace seeks us while we are wandering. Grace makes repentance possible. Grace forgives us when we return. Grace begins re-creating us. Grace gives us power to remain faithful without pretending that we are strong.

We take up our cross and follow Jesus not to earn God’s presence, but because the crucified and risen Christ has already come to us, reconciled us to God, and given us his Spirit.

Held by his presence

Listen again to God’s promise to Jeremiah: ‘I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you’ (Jeremiah 15:20, NIV).

Notice what God does not promise. God does not say the people will stop fighting Jeremiah. God does not immediately remove the struggle.

Instead, God says, ‘I will make you.’ God says, ‘I am with you.’ God says, ‘I will rescue and save you’ (Jeremiah 15:20, NIV).

Jeremiah is not told to make himself into a wall of bronze. God promises to make him one.

Perseverance is not the achievement of unusually determined Christians. It is the fruit of grace received again and again through the Holy Spirit and through the means God has given us: Scripture, prayer, worship, Holy Communion, confession, Christian fellowship, works of mercy, and the steady presence of the body of Christ.

To be held in the struggle does not mean that the struggle disappears. It means the struggle is no longer the deepest truth about us.

The deepest truth is not: ‘I am anxious.’ The deepest truth is: ‘I belong to Christ.’ The deepest truth is not: ‘I have been wounded.’ The deepest truth is that ‘by his wounds you have been healed’ (1 Peter 2:24, NIV). The deepest truth is not: ‘I cannot see what God is doing.’ The deepest truth is God’s promise: ‘I am with you’ (Jeremiah 15:20, NIV).

So what do we do when faithfulness hurts and God seems difficult to find?

We lament honestly. We tell God the truth about our struggle.

We see clearly. We allow God, often through other Christians, to separate the precious from the worthless and to correct the stories our pain has taught us.

We return faithfully. We take the next step in the work God has given us—not to prove our strength, but in response to restoring grace.

And we receive his sustaining presence. We trust that the God who calls us is the God who will be with us.

Perhaps today you need to stop pretending and tell God what hurts. Perhaps you need to ask, ‘What has my disappointment taught me to believe about God?’ Perhaps you need to tell a pastor, a mentor, or a trusted Christian, ‘I think I have reached the Wall, and I do not want to face it alone.’

Or perhaps God is calling you to become that person for someone else—to join a band, mentor another believer, make room for confession, and offer presence without rushing to give an easy answer.

The same God who heard Jeremiah hears you. The same grace that called Jeremiah back is reaching toward you. And the same God who said, ‘I am with you’ (Jeremiah 15:20, NIV) has come near to us in Jesus Christ and remains present through the Holy Spirit.

The fight may not end today. The wound may not heal all at once. But because Jesus Christ was crucified and raised, the struggle will not have the final word.

You are held by the God who hears, forgives, restores, and remains.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.