Jeremiah 1:19: God Will Prevail
Saturday, February 26, 2022
They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., tells us that prophets are an essential element of a society that hopes to improve and progress. He writes: “The Hebrew prophets were free to love their tradition and to criticize it at the same time, which is a very rare art form . . . The presumption for anyone with a dualistic mind is that if you criticize something, you don’t love it. Wise people like the prophets would say the opposite”. Prophets are afire with the understanding that keeping silence is worse than suffering for speaking up. Prophets understand that . . .
They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
Rohr knows the human spirit well when he writes, “We don’t want people who point out our shadow side or our dark side. It is no accident that the prophets and the priests are usually in opposition to one another”. Power structures abhor critiques of any kind. They use the power of silence to control thinking; and yet . . .
They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
Rohr also suggests that “Human consciousness does not emerge at any depth except through struggling with [our] shadow”. In other words, we cannot really grow except when we tussle with life and those we encounter each day. We cannot grow without a passionate desire to experience God’s ways; and so . . .
They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
The prophet Jeremiah sees the corruption and hypocrisy in his society. He speaks up and speaks out, knowing that in so doing he endangers his life. Jeremiah, afire with a deep passion for God’s word and God’s way, confronts the power structure and ultimately prevails because he knows that . . .
They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
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Richard Rohr citations in this post are from “Self-Critical Thinking,” Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation for Monday, February 15, 2015. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation–Self-Critical-Thinking.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=rnft6vyUO0Q
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