“Go and buy a linen belt and put in around your waist, but do not let it touch water. So I bought a belt, as the LORD directed...Then the word of the LORD came to me... ‘Take the belt and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.’ So I went and hid it... ‘Go now...and get the belt...’ So I went...and dug up the belt” Jeremiah 13:1-7.
This passage made me laugh when I thought about how God works when dealing with us. It reminded me of how I came to be a constant part of On Eagles Wings Ministries. At the beginning I did nothing more than my pastor asked of me. Then I was playing a game on my phone when a notification popped up that Emily F wanted to play with me. I was startled because I never played with anyone much other than my daughter, who at the time was in college. I felt God instruct me to accept her game request and play with her. I was somewhat entertained by the fact that God spent time making sure I played a game on my phone. Wasn’t there disasters to be interrupted and conversations with world leaders that God should be orchestrating? But I did it. She accepted and I felt God command that I ask her for her telephone number, so with reluctance I asked this stranger for her phone number explaining that God told me to. Thankfully, she had been the recipient of strange God-requests for years so she accepted. Two years later I find myself as her Director of Development, something I have never professionally done before. I still am fulfilling daily requests from God, some strange and some exciting!
The more intimate we become with God the more we trust Him for the illogical and not just the logical. We will be led to accept things, deny things, surrender things and approach things that seem to propel us from where we want to be. Can you imagine Jeremiah with the seriousness of the situation? One moment God is instructing him to prophesy wrath and destruction among His people with the next minute telling him to buy a new belt, bury it and dig it up. What swirled through Jeremiah's mind during the different steps? We cannot know for sure but we can be certain Jeremiah pondered over these things. The important part was that he did not require an explanation from God prior to obeying God. As far as Scripture states, we have no proof that He ever even questioned God...he simply went and did.
God is going to ask us to do things that seem futile, senseless, impossible and sometimes even ridiculous. Our part is not to gain understanding but to obey and be blessed by the trust and fellowship we share with Him.
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