Week 29 Jeremiah 12
Jeremiah asked two questions (actually it was the same question asked in two different ways):
Why are the wicked so prosperous?
Why are evil people so happy?
I think Jeremiah asked the two questions because he thought that bad people should be unsuccessful and that good people should be successful.
Jeremiah’s mental Rule Book seemed to frame things this way:
Rule #1: Bad People Shouldn’t Succeed
Rule #2: Good People Should Succeed.
Jeremiah likely knew very well that bad people succeeded for the same reasons any successful person succeeded: if you’re smart & hard-working & focused & diligent & lucky & aggressive & self-centered (and maybe ruthless & dishonest) then chances are you’ll succeed.
Jeremiah also likely knew it’s generally true that:
Some evil people are successful
But some evil people aren’t successful
And some good people are successful
But other good people aren’t.
I can understand Jeremiah’s question and I think it makes pretty good sense. It doesn’t seem fair if a good guy suffers and a bad guy doesn’t. But unfair happens and Jeremiah (technically-speaking a Big Picture Guy) should have realized that success / failure are short-term & non-permanent conditions. In the long-run they don’t even count.
Jeremiah knew that the real question was: is a guy Good or is he Evil? Whether cash & friends & power go along as part of the mix makes a short-term difference. But they aren’t fixtures. They’re all here-today-gone-tomorrow. And that doesn’t help much in the long-term.
Note: quote from Jeremiah 12:1 (NLT)