Jeremiah 4:19-22 – Take full advantage of hard times.

Jeremiah could see the effect of the judgment so here in the remaining verses of chapter 4, he described how devastating the judgment would be. In verses 19-22, he was saying that it would be a horrifying judgment. Here his prophetic gift enabled him to hear and see how terrifying the judgment was. So anguished by what he saw coming in the coming judgment, he could longer remain silent. So he exclaimed:

“My soul, my soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart!
My heart is pounding in me;
I cannot be silent,
Because you have heard, O my soul,
The sound of the trumpet,
The alarm of war.”

 

Jeremiah heard the proclamations of disaster piling up on Judah. He could sense imminent, sudden, and thorough devastation coming upon them. In an instant everything, tent and curtain and all would be left in ruin.  So shocked by what he saw that he complained by asking a rhetorical question. He asked, “How long must he see Judah’s deterioration and continue to hear and warn of impending devastation?” What he wanted to know was how long would the judgment of God upon them last.  

 

Though Jeremiah did not address God, he received a response from Him. He was told that for as long as the people of Judah remained foolish, the vision of devastation would continue to come to warn them. God saw how foolish his people were. It was so obvious how accustomed they were to evil. They had a total lack of spiritual acuity and understanding. They obviously did not have a knowledge  of Him through a lack of personal interaction with Him. Thus they were not walking with Him. In their lack of personal knowledge of God, they had become experts in plotting evil and no longer knew how to do what was right in God’s sight.

 

Most times, hard times are allowed by God to build our relationship with Him. However, some of them are His warnings concerning our wrong direction in life. God allows them to help us to make a U-turn. But if we persist in them despite His warning, we will find the trying moments intensify. Hard times are not there to break us but to build us and help us change the wrong course we may have embarked upon. Be sensitive to God’s guidance. His guidance can only be experienced when we are walking in close connection with Him. Hear a wise word from the Apostle Paul from Ephesians 5:15-17, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” The surest way to understand God’s will for our lives is to develop our personal walk with Him.