Making an easier path for ourselves

 This week's verses are Jeremiah 42:13-17:

“You must not disobey the Lord your God by saying, ‘We will not stay in this land.’ You must not say, ‘No, we will not stay. Instead we will go and live in the land of Egypt where we will not face war, or hear the enemy’s trumpet calls, or starve for lack of food.’ If you people who remain in Judah do that, then listen to the Lord’s message. This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, has said, ‘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. All the people who are determined to go and settle in Egypt will die from war, starvation, or disease. No one will survive or escape the disaster I will bring on them.’ 

 These verses are the message of God via the prophet Jeremiah for a man named Johanan, but we can learn something from them too. At the time when these verses take place, it was a couple years after Nebuchadnezzar had invaded Israel and set up one of the local bureaucrats as governor of Israel on his behalf. This governor, named Gedaliah, was a good man who loved God, and the country prospered under his rule, but he was assassinated by an evil warlord, Ishmael, who had closer ties to the former king.

Ishmael, backed by the pagan king of neighboring Jordan, ambushed poor Gedaliah during the holy feast of Rosh Hashanah and then proceeded to slaughter a group of religious pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem to observe the holy days. Then he put all of the Jewish people under his rule. Unlike Gedaliah, Ishmael showed by his actions that he neither loved God nor the Jewish people. And because he had killed Nebuchadnezzar's chosen man, the army of the New Babylonian Empire was almost certain to lay waste to Israel in revenge.

Johanan was another warlord, who had tried to warn Gedaliah of Ishmael's plot. When Gedaliah was assassinated, Johanan gathered his men and defeated Ishmael and drove him out. But news of that was unlikely to reach Babylon in time to avoid the crushing military response that would have been sent in response to the rebellion. So Johanan and his people were making plans to sell off their stuff and pack up and move to Egypt to wait out the war. This week's verses are God's response when Johanan asked for God's confirmation that it was OK to run for his life.

To really feel these verses, you have to put yourself in Johanan's shoes. Imagine you tried so hard to warn people about the disaster of Ishmael's treachery but they ignored you. Then you risked your life to try to rescue them from the consequences. But you and your family are now at risk of being victims of genocide. You have a connection in a safe country and the means to get you and your loved ones out, but you have to act quickly if you're going to escape before the war starts.

It's normal and rational to want to escape hardship.  Nobody wants to live on a battlefield. When Russia invaded Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainians ran to the safety of the West. Many Americans' ancestors fled their home countries for similar reasons. And even today people are leaving the Middle East and Africa because of conflicts that are developing there. If you have a golden ticket that gets you and your loved ones out of hell, you use it, right? It only makes sense.

So Johanan, as a righteous man, blessed with an option to flee to safety from a disaster he had no part in creating, was hoping that God would back his decision to run. So you can imagine how shocking it must have been to hear God basically say, "No, I want you to stay right where you are, at ground zero for the Babylonian attack, amidst famine, disease, and constant violence. And if you try to run, I will kill you and everyone who goes with you."

Unfortunately for Johanan, he didn't have the faith to see if God would uphold his promise to prosper him in the midst of the Babylonian reprisal. He gathered up everyone and went to Egypt, only for the Babylonian Empire to pass through Israel and invade Egypt next.  As foreigners with no local knowledge or support network, the Jews that Johanan took with him didn't stand a chance. It would have been better if they had stayed where God told them to stay.

We sometimes find ourselves in a situation like Johanan did, where what we are asked to do to remain faithful seems crazy compared to the "rational" alternative. Maybe we don't want to be seen as fools for believing in a God so instead of praying for a hurting colleague we tell them we are sending them our "thoughts." Or maybe we know we're supposed to reach out to a certain community but money is getting tight and maybe we have a job offer in a much nicer place in another state. Or maybe you actually are in a war zone and it could be dangerous for you to stay there and care for your people instead of fleeing while you can.

The problem for Johanan, and for us, is that we don't know the future. And our concept of a loving God can mislead us into believing that we can predict his plan based on how easy and safe it seems to us compared to the alternative. We forget that God is also an artist who works in hardship and disaster, and that he knows shortcuts that we would never have noticed on our own. Do we follow him, or do we ask him to follow us? Who knows the way?

When we are in a situation that we don't like, we naturally try to negotiate our own shortcuts. We say things like "haven't I sacrificed enough?" "would God really want me to become poor?" "what about my kids?" "don't I deserve a break?" "wouldn't God want me to be happy and safe?" In not giving God the veto power on our exit plan, we are living like atheists, disregarding the divine to chart our own course.

The path that looks easy is not always the easier path in the long run. While most of the time, the correct choice is to make the safe investment, get out of harm's way while you can, seize the opportunity while it is there, and so on, sometimes we are called to stay in a place of danger.  We have to be open to that possibility. We should not ask for God's direction if we are not willing to accept his answer.

Hopefully your life circumstances, like mine, are pretty unremarkable. But if you are in conflict between God's path and your own "safe" alternative, choose God's path. He knows the better way of getting you to where you need to be.