To Pray or Not to Pray

Jeremiah 42,43

A remnant of Israelites avoided the exile and remained in the land of Judah. This group was led by officers of the Judean army who had escaped and hid in the countryside to avoid being killed by the Babylonian invaders or taken captive to Babylon. Earlier, Ishmael led a rebellion and killed Gedaliah who was appointed by the King of Babylon to govern the remnant. As a result, the leaders of the remnant feared that the Babylonians might return. Their plan was to escapte to Egypt.

Instead of heading to Egypt immediately, for some reason they went to Jeremiah with a request.

Then all the army officers, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah and all the people of every class, went to the prophet Jeremiah.  They said to him, “Please grant our request and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.” . . .  “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do just as the Lord your God sends you to tell us to do. We will obey what the Lord our God to whom we are sending you tells us to do. It does not matter whether we like what he tells us or not. We will obey what he tells us to do so that things will go well for us.”

So Jeremiah agreed with their request to seek the Lord’s will on behalf of the remnant. From the passage above, it seems the remnant wanted to follow the Lord. Ten days later Jeremiah came to the group with an answer from God. After Jeremiah shared with them the message from God, the leaders of this remnant replied.

Jeremiah finished telling all the people all these things the Lord their God had sent him to tell them. Then Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and other arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie! The Lord our God did not send you to tell us, ‘You must not go to Egypt and settle there.’ But Baruch son of Neriah is stirring you up against us. He wants to hand us over to the Babylonians so that they will kill us or carry us off into exile in Babylon.” So Johanan son of Kareah, all the army officers, and all the rest of the people did not obey the Lord’s command to stay in the land of Judah. . .They went to Egypt because they refused to obey the Lord, and came to Tahpanhes. [Tahpanhes is a city on Egypt’s northern border.]

When the remnant came to Jeremiah, they seemed so sincere, vowing to do whatever the Lord says. “It does not matter whether we like what He tells us or not.” Yet as soon as Jeremiah relayed God’s message, they immediately refused it. Why?

Had they decided already to escape to Egypt but wanted to confirm that this was God’s will? Maybe even in a small group, there were differing opinions and some in the group convinced the leaders to go to Jeremiah even though the leaders were reluctant. The leaders acquiesced to the minority voice in hopes of building a consensus and therefore went to Jeremiah. Or it could be the group was truly convinced that fleeing to Egypt was God’s will and asking Jeremiah to pray was a mere formality?

Maybe the leaders’ only intention was to flee to Egypt. Why then would they ask Jeremiah to seek God’s will? Surely the leaders must have known that God’s plan might differ from their plan. Was the remnant so filled with pride that their plan was best, that they made no allowance that God’s plan might be different and better?

Why were they so bent on fleeing to Egypt? The remnant wanted to get away from war, from hearing the enemy’s trumpet call, from starvation. This is man’s thinking. The irony is that by going to Egypt, God promised that they would die from war, starvation, and disease. The very things from which they were fleeing, in the end, were the very things they would find in Egypt. Though Egypt was at peace during that time, God would shortly bring the Babylonians to invade Egypt. “If you are so determined to go to Egypt that you go and settle there, the wars you fear will catch up with you there in the land of Egypt. The starvation you are worried about will follow you there to Egypt. You will die there.” Sometimes following God will not bring immediate relief, but in the end there will be rest. Not following God may bring peace and comfort for the moment, but in the end it leads to ruin and destruction. This reminds me of Jesus’ word, “He who saves his life shall lose it, but he who loses his life for My sake shall save it.”

. . . back to the issue of praying for God’s guidance. If we truly desire God’s guidance, we must come to Him humbly with opened hands. It’s no use to firmly grasp our plan and then seek His guidance. Doing so is to mock God. Certainly God is not fooled for He knows our heart. It would be better to not seek His guidance and just continue with our misguided way. This is not much different than the story about Ananias and Sapphira; who sold a piece of land and yet offered only a portion of the proceeds to God. They did not have to offer any of the proceeds to God. They could have kept all of it for themselves. Instead they pretended to offer all the proceeds when in fact they offered only a portion of it. This pretense was an affront to God just as is the pretense of seeking God’s will when there’s no intention of following it.

Yes, we should seek God’s guidance, but we must seek with opened hands and humbled hearts. And as we listen for His answer, we listen with faith and not our understanding because His ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts.