Please welcome guest blog writer, Bruce Jacobson, and his reflections on Jeremaih 18 this week and next.  He is a scientist and student of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary.  

 Our lives are full of transitions (divorce, death of loved ones, loss of job, injury, death) which “in the moment” seem like destruction. Jeremiah does not suggest passive deference to God’s will. Intimacy with an infinite, all-powerful God is not achieved through sheep-like submission but through conversation, questions, and even tantrums. In “Yosl Rakover talks to God”, Zvi Kolitz’s classic example of Holocaust-inspired literature, Yosl, a post-modern Job, wrestles with God about the horrific nature of the Holocaust and comes to a heartfelt revelation of God’s nature and his relationship with God:

“I am saying all this to You in plain words because I believe in You, because I believe in You more than ever before, because I know now that You are my God. For You are not, You cannot be the God of those whose deeds are the most horrific proof of their militant godlessness. For if You are not my God—whose God are You? The God of the murderers?” (1)

 No matter how horrific the experience, God is my God, for he claimed me before I was born; His faithfulness and transformational grace cannot be revealed through the absence of trials but through the experience of God in the midst of trials and in our hope for tomorrow.  Read Jeremiah 1:10, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Bruce

Today’s Reading: See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jeremiah 1:10, NIV)

1. Kolitz Z, Janeway CB. Yosl Rakover talks to God. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books; 1999.