What Are You Lookin' For

Jer 6:15 Were they ashamed when they had

committed abomination? nay, they were not

at all ashamed, neither could they blush:

therefore they shall fall among those who

fall; at the time that I visit them they

shall be cast down, says Yhwh.

16 Thus says Yhwh, Stand you in the ways

and see, and ask for the old paths, where

is the good way; and walk therein, and you

shall find rest for your souls: but they

said, We will not walk [therein].

17 I set watchmen over you, [saying],

Listen to the sound of the trumpet; but

they said, We will not listen.

18 Therefore hear, you nations, and know,

congregation, what is among them.

19 Hear, earth: behold, I will bring evil

on this people, even the fruit of their

thoughts, because they have not listened to

my words; and as for my law, they have

rejected it.


From yesterday's post, there are a few more
things to notice. Something caught my
attention. Did you ever hear the phrase,
'Turn a blind eye'? It has the implication
that even though you are looking right at
something, you can not or will not see it.
There is something about our psychology
that allows the mind to filter out the
information that we don't want to see. On
the other hand, the mind can be trained to
observe events that would otherwise go
unoticed. Like me, I'm sure there have
been times in your life when you had to ask
the question, How did they see that? It's
implied that you missed it, somehow. Or
the question, How could they miss that? It
happens so often that we don't even think
about it as unusual. People get blindsided
by events all the time.


The way I see it, the average person has an
ability, but not the training to observe
common events in life. Deeper still is the
emotional interference that results from
the way that the emotional character of a
person has been shaped. Again, emotional
response can be trained. It's a
conditioned response. If you have children
at home, you watch their emotions push them
and pull them in all different directions,
because they have not learned to recognize
and control their emotional impulse. You
shake your head? Why do you think that
advertising is so very effective? If you
are trained to observe, you find that a
clever advertisement is very entertaining,
the way that it pushes and pulls at the
emotional levels -- the levels of envy and
fear. It's persuades otherwise reasonable
people to go out and do strange things.


What are you looking for? That's the
question. Shakespeare's famous line was,
To be, or not to be. That is the question.
It's one of the reasons that I sit down
each day and try to type something out at
the keyboard. I want to be able to see
whatever it is that I'm looking at. My
experience shows that all too often, what
you get is not what you expected. It's not
a WYSIWYG world. There is an element of
expectation that has to be defined. In
addition to the question of, what are you
looking for, is the question, what do you
expect to find.


Sometimes, it's really simple. You go to
Macdonalds and get a ghetto bigmac. You
already know what you will get. No
surprises. That's what I like about the
franchise experience. No surprises. They
have quality control down pat.


Sometimes, it's not so simple. What was
Jeremiah looking for? What was he looking
at?


Jeremiah saw himself as a watchman. It's
believed that he was the son of a levitical
priest. That implies that he was taught
as he grew up, the text of scripture. He
had a morally informed conscience. He was
not too happy about what he saw others
around him doing. 'Were they ashamed when

they had committed abomination? nay, they

were not at all ashamed, neither could they

blush...' When he looked at the people, he
could see that they were headed for
trouble, because they had all the wrong
ambitions. 'you shall find rest for your

souls: but they said, We will not walk

[therein].' v.16


One of the factors that set him apart was
that he not only saw what was going on in
his immediate surroundings, but he saw the
larger picture.

22 Thus says Yhwh, Behold, a people comes

from the north country; and a great nation

shall be stirred up from the uttermost

parts of the earth.

He had a message to the people of Israel
that there was trouble on the way. Not
just ordinary trouble, but something
serious. It was not going to be business
as usual. He could see clearly, what
others could not see. He was looking out,
others were not paying attention. He could
see that it was only a matter of time
before the foriegn armies invaded. He
could see that the indifference of the
people, would bring their own demise. He
saw it as a consequence of rejecting the
law of G-d. They were not seeing, because
they were looking at something else that
they could not let go of.

19 Hear, earth: behold, I will bring evil

on this people, even the fruit of their

thoughts, because they have not listened to

my words; and as for my law, they have

rejected it.

There was an emotional element at work.
It's in the phrase, 'the fruit of their
thoughts'. They had no thought for the law
of G-d. They were not looking for
salvation. They were not seeing eternity
on the road ahead. They were thinking, no
doubt, that they had something better.
They had a better idea. Who needs all that
G-d stuff? Jeremiah, just go away. Enough
already.


If you know the history, you know how that
worked out for them. The Assyrian and then
the Babylonian armies came anyway, and took
away many of the survivors into captivity.
It's not what they were looking for.


All of that to ask, Are you looking for
Jesus? He said, as he left, that he would
be returning. The Jesus Bus is going,
whether or not you are there. I sorta'
like the offer of '...you shall find rest'.
Sound alot like what I'm lookin' for.