Advent Devotional for December 2

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Advent Devotional for Friday, December 2

Jeremiah 1:4-10

It would be nice if God would keep a proper distance.

If you have traveled much in the Middle East, you know that people tend to intrude upon your personal space, at least as it is defined here in America. They don’t spread out over the bus, but tend to bunch—right next to you. They don’t stand two feet away in conversation. It is right in your face. God is right in Jeremiah’s face.

Other than Jeremiah’s weak objection in v. 6, we don’t get much of an insight about what Jeremiah thinks of this new arrangement (which is not actually new at all —surprise!). I imagine he is squirming.

Francis Thompson wrote “The Hound of Heaven” in 1893 describing God’s relentless pursuit of the writer through “the arches of the years” and “labyrinthine ways,” with “deliberate speed, majestic instancy.” “The Voice” does hound us, make demands of us, knows what we are capable of, and expects us to use our gifts to build and to plant. God will not keep a respectful distance, but sit right next to us on the bus, no matter how much room there is elsewhere.

O Heavenly Voice, near and far, round me “like the bursting sea,” forgive my deafness, my turned head, my glazed eyes, my reluctant steps, always checking for email rather than my Lord’s whispers. Persist, that I may desist, and return to what has never left me. Amen.

Whit Bodman
Associate Professor of Comparative Religion

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For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.