I put my heart in a vessel and let it boil
A teaspoon of hurt in my mind jar, covered with a voile,
I let it brew for some time, hoping for a glorious gold,
“Tis good for your soul!” is what many told,
I took a sip—bitter, but still I swallowed,
One sip, then another—eye-rolled.
Footnotes:
Jeremiah—aka. the weeping prophet—wrestled with loneliness, feelings of defeat and insecurity. He was constantly rejected by the people he loved and reached out to. He had concoction of negative emotions, all pointing to depression of sorts. Read Lamentations, you’ll get the picture.
He vents out his frustration to God, saying,
4 Cursed be the day I was born!
May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!
15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
who made him very glad, saying,
“A child is born to you—a son!”
16 May that man be like the towns
the Lord overthrew without pity.
May he hear wailing in the morning,
a battle cry at noon.
17 For he did not kill me in the womb,
with my mother as my grave,
her womb enlarged forever.
18 Why did I ever come out of the womb
to see trouble and sorrow
and to end my days in shame?
-Jeremiah 20:14-18
The prophet says that he rather not live than face what he face. Also, notice the word “shame”—it is an emotion many with depression struggle with. Maybe he thought that he wasn’t good enough or if he would become better, then probably the people would listen.
Quite a strong statement! Sadly, a familiar tonality in this day and age. The interesting bit is that the current period has a moral, political and ethical climate similar to Jeremiah’s time—the indifference among rulers, constant threats of war, ever-increasing crime rates, toxic relationships, hurt within and outside the church and, most of all, self-destructive mental conditions. Yes, Jeremiah went through a lot but the highlight bit is his deep-seated understanding of the limitations of mankind—the true essence of the fact that we cannot live fulfilling lives without the constant guidance of God.
My imagination got to work, and scripted a tête-à-tête with Jeremiah to learn three big lessons from his life.
A humid summer evening. Jeremiah comes over for tea at my terrace. I make iced chai— “No sugar!” he says. I frown at the idea but I listen and serve the sugarless cold brew. He sips and comments on the colour and the strength of tea like a connoisseur. I smile and nod, pretending to enjoy the sweet-absent beverage.
Lesson 1: Life is full of bitter sips.
Faithfulness does not promise a trouble-free life. Working hard or being faithful will not keep the gloom away. Most people are taught that their emotional state is their own fault. “Maybe if you work harder or become more faithful, it will fade away!”—A variation of the theology of glory: if you believe hard enough, life will be easy.
“In this world, you will have trouble. Take heart! I have overcome the world.”
-John 16:33
Jeremiah was not saved because of his faithfulness. Neither was he saved by clinging to some undying optimism. He was saved because of God’s faithfulness to him and to all the promises He made. This world is broken and as long as we are in this world, we break every now and then. But brokenness is necessarily not weakness. The Word says, “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted!” Shooing the gloom away with extra load of faith or optimism is not a solution but it is the awareness of God’s closeness that enables one to cross the bridge. And no, it does not destroy the bridge.
Lesson 2: Perfect strength comes with the right amount of time.
It usually takes six minutes for tea leaves to brew fully—this time determines the strength of the beverage. Similarly, there is a wait, before we attain strength. Looking at the science of brewing, smaller the particle size, higher the strength—the dust tea is supposedly the strongest among all other. During this wait, there could be some breaking down and squeezing out—a process of creating a beautiful golden brew.
What can we learn from this?
–Don’t let your size determine your strength. God used David to bring down a big Goliath. “Faith as small as a mustard seed”—that is more than enough to move mountains.
–The wait is a time of empowering. If you look at the major characters in the Bible, all of them had a season of wait. Joseph is the biggest example. A wait in the pit, a wait in palace, a wait in the prison—but what came out of it is a man with solid and unwavering faith in God.
Jeremiah writes, “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
Lesson 3: Habits impact taste
I often quote this aphorism whenever I write about getting into a discipline—Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a discipline; sow a discipline, reap a destiny. For a diabetic person, avoiding sugar can seem like a Herculean task in the beginning but that changes with time and consistency. Similarly, it takes one to be intentional about bringing about changes in the way we think in order to make it a norm in our lives. Most of us are given the teaching that “God gives good to those who do good” and not “God give good, because He is good!”—this thrust in us an understanding that God only rewards good and every something bad happens, there is self-doubt and whether God is punishing us for something wrong we did. Habitually, we try to over compensate by doing extra good deeds to blotch out the bad. This grows on us and we tend to repeat this pattern, thinking that this pleases God.
Yes, God rewards people but He does not function on a reward-system wherein He gives good to those who do good and punishes those who do bad. When we truly understand that God loves us because He is good and not anything we do, we get into the habit of genuine repentance and not over-compensation.
In spite of the fact that he was severely persecuted by his own people, Jeremiah knew that Almighty God was in complete control of events. This was a habit-turned-discipline for Jeremiah. In Lamentations 3, Jeremiah complains in the first 18 verses, then it is “hope springs eternal” for him. Though initially it was hard for him to understand the afflictions, with time and consistent faithfulness to God, he tasted the Father’s goodness.
And what does he say when he truly tasted God?
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for Him.
It was almost time for the sun to go down, our conversation got over and Jeremiah waved goodbye. I watched him walk into the sunset, just like the movies; but he was not alone—there were two shadows.