“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: . . . do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.” (Jeremiah 45:2 – 5, ESV)
All of us have personal aspirations. But what if our aspirations are never met? I heard a television preacher one time preach on this proverb.
“The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9, NASB95)
He went on to say, “This means that if you have a plan, God will bless you.” He then went on to present a business 101 course on setting a goal and executing objectives to accomplish the goal. The problem with this theology is that God has no obligation to bless our plans unless they align with His. Often our aspirations will not meet His plans for us.
I had a plan for greatness. They went from being a millionaire to becoming a great leader in the military and later in business. The problem with these was that they were my plans. Of course, I was not a believer at that time. However, when I came to faith my goals changed. Yet there was still quite a bit of seeking worldly greatness in the Christian context.
Here in this passage, Jeremiah brought a word from the Lord to Baruch who had written a passage of the book as Jeremiah dictated it to him. The passage declared the fact that the Lord was going to bring destruction on Judah as we read in Jeremiah 36:1-8. Baruch was distraught over the message. He exclaimed, “Woe is me! For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.” (Jeremiah 45:3, ESV)
What was Baruch’s problem? Well, he did not want to see Judah decimated by Babylon. However, as we read the record, we can see an ulterior motive. The Lord’s message to him was this, “do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not.” Baruch was seeking greatness for himself and was struggling to walk by faith through what the Lord had decreed for the nation.
Yet in the midst of Baruch’s displeasure, the Lord gave him a promise. “I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.” The Lord promised that his life would be spared.
We often become discouraged when our plans for personal greatness do not work out. We might even question or become angry with God over the circumstances. The great problem is that we tend to look at things through the lens of the world rather than a heavenly lens. This is the difference between living by faith and living by sight. Baruch needed to have his spiritual eyeglasses changed so that he would see things according to God’s purposes rather than his own. We often have the same issue.
So, remember that God’s ways are not our ways and that success and greatness is not to be measured by the world’s standards. True greatness is to be measured by faith, that is trusting God at His word and according to His ways regardless of our circumstances. True greatness engages the rollercoaster of life holding on to the Lord our God with confidence. It is the only way to overcome discouragement.
