Week 25 Jeremiah
After the fall of Jerusalem…
After the exile to Babylon…
After the assassination of the interim governor…
And while they waited for the Babylonian hammer to fall on them again the people came to Jeremiah with a what-to-do? question. Should we stay here? Or should we high-tail it for Egypt?
Jeremiah’s answer was pretty clear…Stay put! He offered a simple formula:
Choice A will lead to Results-Package A (positives)
Choice B will lead to Results-Package B (negatives).
If the people chose Choice A and stayed in Jerusalem then several things would happen (for example, they would live longer). I don’t know what-all other benefits would have been included but by not choosing Choice A it would mean that all those potential A-Results would get taken off the table. That’s what choosing Choice B would mean. All the promised A-Results were gone and the outcome values were reset to Results-Package B. The B-Results that were future possibilities would be actualized when Choice B was selected.
Anyway for whatever reason the people crazily chose Choice B. And their future at that moment switched onto track B.
The people could have chosen A. But they did choose B.
The story doesn’t spell out why the people made that choice. But it does spell out that a) choices are important and that b) choices come with add-ons.
Note: the story of Jeremiah’s two choices is in Jeremiah 42.