Week 29 Jeremiah 10
There’s a short prayer at the end of the chapter. I guess it’s best to read the whole prayer but I stop after the first two sentences: our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course.
There’s two main ideas: a) my life is not entirely my own and b) I don’t have exclusive capability to plan my own way. Neither idea conforms to how people normally think. For instance I tend to think that in the regular day-to-day course of events I think & plan & decided & do.
Sometimes I decide to do something and then I do it.
Sometimes I decide to do something but then decide differently and don’t do it (in a case like that I still figure I’m making a decision – a kind of negative decision).
Sometimes I decide not to do something and so I don’t do it.
Sometimes I decide not to do something but in the end I might actually do it.
Anyway the point is that one-way-or-the-other I feel like I’m pretty much in the driver’s-seat when it comes to deciding and doing.
That’s why the verse slows me down. According to Jeremiah my way – what I decide & do – is not exclusively in me to freely decide & do. For instance when I decide to go somewhere it’s not me who’s deciding the trip.
It’s not like I’m doing nothing. But I’m not doing everything either.
Note: quotes from Jeremiah 10:23 (NLT)