Recharge: Prayers of prophets

The Full Monty:

Jeremiah 1:1-19 Read this if you have time for a full exploration.

The Continental Option:

Jeremiah 1:7-10 Read this if you only have time for one significant passage.

One Shot Espresso:

Jeremiah 1:7 ‘The Lord replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you.”’

In an essay called ‘The world as I see it’, first published in 1931, the great theoretical physicist Albert Einstein wrote: ‘The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.’

Though he was not a believer in any traditional sense, Einstein insisted that in spirituality as in science, there must always be this sense of awe. ‘It was the experience of mystery,’ he wrote, ‘even if mixed with fear, that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.’

In prayer as in physics, we are touching that which is beyond us. No matter how carefully or how cleverly you attempt to explain the experience of prayer, there will always be a part of it beyond your understanding. To be open to this, to expect the unexpected, to allow God to speak to us in ways we can’t rationally predict - these are the very elements that make the journey of prayer an adventure worth embarking on. One of the key ways in which the Bible keeps alive this sense of mystery, inviting us to engage with the surprises of God, is in the place it gives to the prophetic tradition.

Believing in prophecy is what allows us to hear God speak now, addressing directly the situation we face, flying often in the face of the things we thought our religion might say. To pray without this prophetic dimension is to assume that every situation we face can be rationally resolved by application of God’s past proclamations. Inviting as this idea sounds to some of us, it isn’t the picture the Bible paints. From Abraham to Amos and Jeremiah to Jesus, the Bible is a cavalcade of the speaking of God’s now word.

So how do we make sure that our prayers are making room for the prophetic? There are a number of clues we can draw from the life of Jeremiah.

Let God begin with small messages. God tells Jeremiah that he will be used to uproot and tear-down nations. This is epic stuff, a calling on a national scale. The prophet might well think he’s about to become the Jeremy Paxman of his age, a big hitter for the day’s big issues. When God begins to speak, though, he shows Jeremiah an almond tree and a boiling kettle. Really? The nation is going to be uprooted with cartoon kettles? The lesson here is that listening to God calls for sensitivity. He will whisper far more often than he will shout, and unless we slow down long enough to catch him, we’ll think he hasn’t spoken. Take time, take stock, and take seriously the words you hear. Prophets are not the only ones God is speaking to - more often they are just the only ones who are listening. 

Expect the unexpected. Throughout his ministry, Jeremiah must contend with those who fake the word of God, who tell people only what they want to hear. They put on deep prophet-voices, but they are simply amplifying their own thoughts, not speaking words from God. God’s word is surprising, uprooting, disruptive and often difficult: it rarely simply repeats what we already want to hear. This doesn’t mean you should make it stranger than it is, but it does mean that you will not always immediately understand. Sometimes a word God speaks to you will take months or even years to make sense. Keep it, write it down and let the Holy Spirit soak it deeply into you. Don’t waste a single word God speaks to you, even if at first it seems strange.

Let God’s word change. When many of God’s people had been taken into exile in Babylon, Jeremiah famously wrote them a letter, saying: ‘Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare’ (Jeremiah 29:4-7). Not long after, this same Jeremiah was declaring the fall of Babylon, saying: ‘Tell the whole world, and keep nothing back. Raise a signal flag to tell everyone that Babylon will fall! Her images and idols will be shattered. Her gods Bel and Marduk will be utterly disgraced. For a nation will attack her from the north and bring such destruction that no one will live there again. Everything will be gone; both people and animals will flee’ (Jeremiah 50:1-3). What’s happening here? Is Jeremiah a hypocrite? Is God? How can one instruction so completely contradict another, when both are presented as God’s word? The answer is that God speaks to the ‘now’ moment of Israel’s experience. Prophecy addresses the context we face now; it speaks God’s unchanging word into our immediate, changeable situation.

Here are four key ways that you can nurture and develop prophetic gifting, whether in your own life or in that of those you lead:

1. Honour anointing. Jeremiah’s main objection to becoming a prophet is that he is too young. Who will respect him if he isn’t old and bearded? God’s answer is that where he calls, he equips, and he will give gifts to those he chooses to. The apostle Peter later cites another prophet, Joel: when the Spirit comes, young and old will prophesy. Is this your experience? Where you see the gift, nurture it, encourage growth and find opportunities to exercise the gift and go deeper.

2. Look for the gift to grow. Like playing an instrument or learning to dance, the prophetic begins in the gifting of God but grows as we commit time to listening and learning. Like music the prophetic brings together head and heart, learned skills and surrendered gifts, intelligence and intuition. Don’t falsely divide God’s word into the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’. Look for the creator’s presence where the two meet.

3. Let time be your test. There is no perfect or infallible test of prophecy, much as some of our churches would like to apply one. Scripture, the body of Christ, experience and maturity can all contribute, just as existing musicians can help us know if a young performer is in tune. In the end, the most effective test of prophecy is time - not so much ‘did it come true?’, but more so we can ask ‘what fruit did this word bear?’ Where there is good fruit, trust the tree.

4. Stay open all hours. Think of a coast guard officer keeper, an air traffic controller and a taxi driver: what are all three told? ‘Whatever else you do, keep the radio on.’ If you are asking God to speak to you, keep your eyes and ears open for his answers. Write down dreams, take note of scripture and pay attention to the world around you. You never know where, when or how God might speak a word to you that opens up the situations you are wrestling with.

There is no infallible, scientific approach to the prophetic that means we will always get it right - but then, according to Einstein, there isn’t for science either. We have to learn to trust God, one another, and all the balance and experience he is giving us. What we mustn’t do is stop listening. God wants to speak into our world: hearing him for the situations we face is a joy and an adventure.