Friday, January 10, 2020
Jeremiah 20: Being Duped by God
You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me and you triumphed.
![46564700-1246927298[1]](https://thenoontimes.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/46564700-12469272981.jpg?w=300&h=205)
Jeremiah is a frequent companion on our Noontime journey and today’s theme is one we have visited often: Sometimes our great fall comes as a direct result of doing precisely what God has asked us to do. Sometimes we are duped by God.
The interior crisis – the situation in which he hope to never find ourselves – is something we all work diligently to avoid . . . and we ought not. It is, in fact, the very reason we are here on earth. It is our personal work. It is the way we arrive at our highest potential.
The places within – the ones we avoid – are the places we must approach with candor and even eagerness. They are our “working edge”. They are our labs, our quizzes, our tests. They are our final exam.
The interior self whom we avoid – the part of ourselves that we shun – is the very place where God dwells. He is there waiting for us with open joy, celebrating with us that we have had the courage to take the scales from our eyes, the mask from our face, the blinders from our perspective.
God is always anticipating our arrival; God is always on the other side of the door we refuse to approach. God is calling out to us to knock and enter. God is waiting there patiently, always abiding. God is our goal in all things and at all times. There is nothing else that matters. No other work. No other cause. No other person. This is what Jesus means when he says that the dead will bury the dead. (Matthew 8:22) There is no thing and no one who ought to stand between us and God. And we will surely find God when we open the dark part of ourselves to allow God’s light into the dim corners.
Each of us has “a shadow self”, the person whom we fasten away, hoping to keep shut in from ourselves and from the world. Much like Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, each of us has a lunatic spouse we keep locked in the north tower . . . and if the metaphor holds we can see the destruction that will arrive if we try to keep that door bolted.
Suffering follows once we open the lock . . . but so does restoration. This is the message of the prophet Jeremiah. It is the message of St. Paul. If we avoid the work we are called to do with and for ourselves, we avoid our personal mission.
Does God dupe us? Yes, God does. Why? Because God loves us, wants us to face our fears while relying on Christ, and God wants us to trust the saving newness of the resurrection that Jesus brings to us without our even asking.
You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me and you triumphed.
When we lock ourselves away with our fears, we have no other recourse but to listen. If we open ourselves to listening to God’s voice, we have the opportunity to respond. And once we respond, we take our first steps toward reconciliation, conversion, and salvation.
God is in charge. There is an Economy of Salvation. There are no mistakes in God’s plan . . . only opportunities for God’s love to triumph.
Tomorrow . . . a Prayer for those who are willing to be duped . . .
Image from: https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/223193
First written on January 17, 2008, re-written and posted today as a Favorite.
The Noontimes 