Even There: What Jeremiah’s Call to Ministry Means for Yours
Within Jeremiah’s call to ministry, we are given a glimpse at God’s sovereignty over all things, including Jeremiah’s own life and destiny. Despite all the ups and downs of Jeremiah’s nerve in light of what he was tasked with preaching, and when he was summoned to preach it, and to whom, his ability to keep on keeping on, as it were, was downstream of both the fact that his message was comprised of the words God was putting into his mouth (Jer. 1:9) and that his Lord had chosen him for this assignment long before he was born.
“Before I formed you in the womb,” the Lord declares to him, “I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). Even as his limbs and ligaments were being formed in his mother’s uterus, God already had a purpose for Jeremiah’s life that he was eager to shape him into. The forming, consecrating, and appointing nomenclature gesture toward an artisan turning clay on a potter’s wheel (cf. Jer. 10:16), appearing throughout Jeremiah’s sermon, where he deploys the same analogy (Jer. 18:6, 11).
The Call That Carries You
Therefore, even though Jeremiah might not have chosen this prophetic office for himself, he could rest assured that God had chosen him for it. As opposition and antagonism mounted, even from among his own peers, as distress calcified into despair, and as hope turned to ash, filling Jeremiah’s heart and soul was the gracious reminder that God himself had equipped him for precisely this moment.
Instead of riding the coattails of his own credentials or boasting in his rhetorical might or religious pedigree, Jeremiah was invited to find ironic consolation in the fact that nothing suited him for this task other than the fact that the Lord had made him suitable for it. All the inadequacies that might otherwise cause him to recoil — age, experience, timidity (Jer. 1:6–7) — are sufficiently swallowed up in a wave of mercy. Or, if you’ll excuse truism, God doesn’t call the qualified; he qualifies the called.
The God Who Watches Over His Word
A pastor’s ability to carry out that to which God has called him isn’t contingent on his capabilities. Rather, the pastoral office hangs on God filling us and fitting us, by his Word and Spirit, and employing us as he so desires. We are the clay in the potter’s hands, which is shaped and molded as the Artisan sees fit. This, to be sure, doesn’t immediately evaporate all of your deep-seated fears and worries. It surely didn’t for Jeremiah, who earned himself the nickname “The Weeping Prophet.”
But the point is that God knew all of this — he knew the stuff with which Jeremiah was made. After all, he made him. This is why God takes to reassuring his despairing prophet with a profound object lesson: “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Jeremiah, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘I see an almond branch.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it’” (Jer. 1:11–12).
The point behind this vision is likely lost on us, mostly because few of us are Hebrew scholars (this author included). In Hebrew, the words for “almond” and “watch” sound almost exactly the same, forming a play on words. Blooming in late winter, almond buds preached to those who watched them, marking the end of one season and the beginning of another. And just as eager eyes watched for that first blossom to signal the start of spring, God says he is watching over his Word to bring it to pass.The Word of God is being watched over by the God of the Word, who ensures and attends to its fulfillment.
What a relief to know that the effectiveness of Jeremiah’s ministry was never tethered to his sufficiency or proficiency, but to the God of all-sufficient grace, whose words never return void (Isa. 55:11). And the same is true for yours as well. Your sphere of ministry might look different from the megachurch pastor down the road. But your calling is no less important, and the God who called you is no less sufficient for you, right where you are, especially for you who are laboring in those overlooked places. It’s no accident that God called you to be where you are, even if that might be in a place full of rolling fields, small towns, and the annual aroma of manure wafting through the air. Even there, the gospel is urgent, the souls valued, and the Word is enough.
As daunting and difficult as rural ministry can be, God is keen on calling preachers, especially inadequate ones, to go precisely there, to the communities most folks drive past on the interstate, because even there, he is with them. Even there, his Word can blossom into flourishing faith.
Where God Calls Us
I can still remember where I was when I sensed God was calling me into pastoral ministry. You see, like another prophet who was fond of running, I had been resisting that call for a while. Similar to Jeremiah, though, I grew up around the Word. Sunday school is just part of my DNA. That’s what happens when your dad is a pastor and both your grandfathers were pastors. But for whatever reason, I didn’t want that for my future, at least at first.
I suppose I was tired of hearing all the comments from churchgoers assuming my future for me. That, of course, I’d be a preacher just because my dad was. So I ran. I entered undergraduate school, majoring in humanities, before switching to a health and fitness focus (which is laughable if you look at my body now), I guess, with the intent of being a coach somewhere.
But all the while, I was grappling with what I knew to be true: that God had other plans for me. And more to the point, all the while, God was hot on my heels, like the hound of heaven that he is. All of this, by the way, coincides with meeting my wife, Natalie, since, as it happens, she was a health and fitness major, too. After we met on the sidewalk and started dating, I eventually told her about how I was wrestling with what my future was. And it was at that year’s Bible Conference (which that particular university has in lieu of Spring Break) when I finally gave up. I stopped running. I switched my major to youth ministries the following semester, and Natalie proceeded to tell me that she also sensed a call to marry a preacher, and the rest is history.
Lord willing, I will surpass the seven-year mark at the church where I serve, which is happily rural. What has sustained me is not that much different from what sustained Jeremiah so long ago — namely, the grace of knowing that God didn’t make a mistake when he called Jeremiah to preach. Although what most might refer to as “success” was hard to come by, God’s Word prevailed because of the God who watches over it. Perhaps you’ve sensed a similar call on your life but have resisted it due to how unqualified you feel or how forgotten your corner of the world may seem. The good news is that God hasn’t made a mistake with you either. The Potter hasn’t pulled his hands away from the clay. The almond tree blossoms, and the Word prevails, because of who is watching over it.
Bradley Gray
Bradley serves as the senior pastor of Stonington Baptist Church in Paxinos, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife Natalie and their three children, Lydia, Braxton, and Bailey. He is the author of Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment and is a regular contributor for 1517 and Mockingbird. He also blogs regularly at www.graceupongrace.net.
