When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight.Jeremiah 15:16
A new believer in Jesus was desperate to read the Bible. However, he’d lost his eyesight and both hands in an explosion. When he heard about a woman who read Braille with her lips, he tried to do the same—only to discover that the nerve endings of his lips had also been destroyed.Later, he was filled with joy when he discovered that he could feel the Braille characters with his tongue! He had found a way to read and enjoy the Scriptures.
Joy and delight were the emotions the prophet Jeremiah experienced when he received God’s words. “When your words came, I ate them,” he said, “they were my joy and my heart’s delight”(Jeremiah 15:16). Unlike the people of Judah who despised His words (8:9), Jeremiah had been obedient and rejoiced in them. His obedience, however, also led to the prophet being rejected by his own people and persecuted unfairly (15:17).
Some of us may have experienced something similar. We once read the Bible with joy, but obedience to God led to suffering and rejection from others. Like Jeremiah, we can bring our confusion to God. He answered Jeremiah by repeating the promise He gave him when He first called him to be a prophet (vv. 19-21; see 1:18–19).God reminded him that He never lets His people down.We can have this same confidence too.He’s faithful and will never abandon us.
15Lord, you understand; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering—do not take me away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake. 16When your words came, I ate them;they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name,Lord God Almighty. 17I never sat in the company of revelers,never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on meand you had filled me with indignation. 18Why is my pain unendingand my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook,like a spring that fails. 19Therefore this is what the Lord says: “If you repent, I will restore youthat you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words,you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you,but you must not turn to them. 20I will make you a wall to this people,a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against youbut will not overcome you, for I am with youto rescue and save you,” declares the Lord. 21“I will save you from the hands of the wickedand deliver you from the grasp of the cruel.”
INSIGHT
When have you experienced joy in reading the Scriptures?
What can help you regain your hunger and thirst for God?
The prophet Jeremiah is known as “the weeping prophet.” One reason is that he openly weeps over his wayward Jewish brothers and sisters and the discipline their disobedience requires. The word weep appears twelve times in Jeremiah, including 9:1: “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.” Jeremiah also bears this title due to his book of laments, which we call Lamentations. In the book, Jeremiah uses the word weep three times, includingLamentations 2:11: “My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed.”
Faithful God, thank You for speaking to me through the words of the Bible. Help me to seek You earnestly and to obey You faithfully. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen!!
Am so blessed 🙌
Amen!! Glory be to God.