I Know They Talk about Me

It is this kind of mentality or spirit God encouraged Jeremiah to have when He said, “Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.” (Jeremiah 1:8) Jeremiah had to warn Judah of judgment and couldn’t afford to be consumed by the looks, thoughts, feelings, and words of others. If he did he would have failed his task. Jeremiah didn’t lack compassion or a heart for Judah, evidence of that is seemingly in the Book of Jeremiah and especially Lamentations. What he had to lack was caring what people thought and said lest it derail his mission.

What is so key, and lends reassurance, is the latter part of the scripture, “…for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.” To know God is with you when your doing what your doing helps to toughen that skin and grow those feathers, because “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Jeremiah’s initial response to God’s ordaining him a prophet to the nations was, “…I cannot speak: for I am a child.” Who would listen to a child? What would they say and think about judgments coming from the mouth of someone so young? Surely ridicule would and did come; enough to turn the average person away, but God was with him.

Way on the other end of the spectrum are the people overly consumed with the thoughts and words others have of them. It becomes paralyzing for these people to function properly through life. There is no direction in their lives because they are constantly changing directions with the changing thoughts and words of others. Times of being alone are not really alone because the words of others play in their minds like a skipped record. Momentary glimpses of peace are quickly shattered by the remembrance of what their family member, co-worker or next door neighbor said or of what they are thinking.

It’s not impossible for God to use anyone, but I would think there is more work to be done in a person like this. People like this will not stay faithful to the command that God has given them because the concern of what others think and say would supersede God’s commands. In 1 Samuel 15:24 we find a good example of what would happen. Leading up to this verse King Saul was given the strict commandment from God to kill the Amalekite nation; this included men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, goats, camels and donkeys – everything. Everything and everyone wasn’t killed. Saul and his men kept the best of the livestock and did not kill King Agag (King of the Amalekites). Saul’s reason for not completing the mission as instructed was because he “feared the people, and obeyed their voice.” The repercussion was God’s rejection of Saul as King.