The prophet Jeremiah is in deep despair and filled with anguish. God has asked him to bring a message of doom, gloom, destruction…and then ultimately rebuilding and hope. He has been preaching to all people and the only response has been mockery and laughter. “Yeah right,” Israel
I was reading Jeremiah 20 today where Jeremiah curses the day he was born and asks God, “Why the heck did you pick me for this task?” He even says to God, “You deceived me! I thought if I was your prophet and did what you asked that you would make the people listen!” For Jeremiah, success was measured by the number of people who would repent and heed the warning…which was currently tallied at zero. Yet what was God’s plumb line for success?
I struggle with this all the time. Perhaps the easiest way to say it is that I am addicted to attention. I love to hear that I have made a difference. I have said before that the five minutes after preaching a sermon are the worst. You are just sitting there, having put yourself out there, you receive no immediate feedback. I think God designed it that way as a reminder to me that human affirmation is not what validates the words spoken. God’s spirit does.
What strikes me about Jeremiah is that God essentially says that success is not measured by the number of people but the faithfulness and integrity to which Jeremiah preaches. God is saying, “I did promise to be with you…but not necessarily to produce the results you want, but to bring about lasting transformation.” It is not the amount of people that shake my hand on a Sunday morning and say, “Great job, Danielle” that matters. It is my faithfulness and integrity to my call.
It makes me wonder:
*Do I ever compromise what I feel like God wants me to say for what is easier for the people (myself included) to swallow?
* Am I so addicted to seeing results that I miss the Spirit’s work along the way? (I can hear my colleague say, “It is the journey that matters, not the destination.”)
What is your definition of success?
My success is defined by the path that I have been put on in order to achieve my calling. God called me to capture his beautiful world through photographs and to share them with the world so that others may see what he has created. From the sun shining, to the wind blowing through the trees he is always there calling my name to show me where I need to go next.
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