Jeremiah could see that the Heart of The Father was the center of the universe, and our ultimate home! That everything could be seen rightly from that part of God. He entered the bosom of The Father, and sat in order to see. From there, trust is not a question. We simply know that God cares so deeply about every issue not just in our lives but the entire universe! He looks out on us from His Own Center, and we must be in Peace because somehow He is! Despite a clear view of all our problems. Jeremiah’s spirituality was one of a sanctification of his personal heart into The Heart of God.
Jeremiah, climbed into this space in God, and made his cave there, spoke from there and suffered from there. That was where all his words issued forth from. The rest changed and expressed history–as all prophets both predict and, i think, change history by expressing this space within The Father. But Jeremiah did so in a unique and overt way. He was living there in that cave of the Father’s Heart, and had to separate his own feelings from God’s–and then go on, and express them on earth into his moment in space and time, using his own heart, his own emotions as a way to translate what God was sensing. This candle of Jeremiah’s heart was surrounded by the engulfing flame of The Father’s Heart, and from this space he proclaimed things onto the earth. We carry a candle of our own, but it can be engulfed by the blazing furnace of this space in God!
Few of us are even willing to die, to visit the Cross regularly, much less to enter the cavern of The Father’s Sweet burning Heart. But Jeremiah began to live there! This is why he was able to know fellowship with and in God’s Suffering. There is tremendous authority in this type of communion with The Father! That is why Jeremiah’s words are like honey, and yet so sad!
The beauty of The Father’s Heart contains such tender strength, that few can withstand the soft tenacity of it’s sheer Being. And yet, this is our origin place–where we come from ultimately, and is our true sense of home even while here on earth. Jeremiah was named and framed and lived in and from The Father’s Heart. What He expressed was flowing from that part of God’s Being. People have tried to name what he carried across time, but where He spoke from is the key. He leads us into that space in God. If we chase his words into The Father, we find ourself in this amazing, tender and so concerned and love-filled space in God, that we are overwhelmed, as Jeremiah was, and we weep, cry, make art and seek justice, do our daily jobs and chores, from this space in Him!
Jeremiah’s spirituality was a model of the sanctification of the the human heart. When we look at his life, we are seeing someone who came to know and express God’s heart, thus, we are seeing the way God deals with the sanctification of the the emotional center of humans. How God baptizes the feeler, sensor within us. How he teaches the difference between His Own feelings and ours. and also how tender He is in discipling those of us who are primarily sensors and feelers!
God wants to partner with us, and as a result He takes some people far into His Heart so they can express what He knows and feels from His Own Center. They bring their center into His. Not just His Words–which are so powerful–but also His very Being! We are in partnership with God to cultivate the garden of our own hearts firstly, and then to collaborate with God in cultivating the hearts of others and our particular domains in the world. That is what the “way of Jeremiah” represents on the earth. This is one of the reasons, this is one of the most autobiographical books of all the prophets. We know more about Jeremiah’s personal life than most prophets, because it is in the book!There’s a reason for this. We don’t meet this biographical emphasis again until we come across the apostle Paul in the New Testament. And both of these men were said to understand “the fellowship with God’s Suffering”! That’s worth noticing! Some part of God that they dwelt in, allowed them to fellowship with His Sufferings, and then proclaim from the authority of that particular communion.
Both of these men were taken to know the very Being of The Father and sit in that place, and express into his own historical instant, as well as he could, the complexity of the heart of God. Both also in their writing were able to express the tender affections (“with the affections of Christ”, as Paul put it) of God, as well as His thoughts and judgements–and somehow connect them in the same Spirit! Paul, overtly speaks of mothering and fathering those he is writing. He expresses the tender compassion of God, as well as His corrections and emotional orientation.
Among the Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah most overtly expresses the emotional life of God! Now that is something great! Jeremiah was not just the weeping prophet. He was one who came to live in The Father’s Heart, and express into his time from there. Regardless of our ways into God, we end up at His Core. We are then often led back out the way we entered, but now with more of this aspect of His Being. Not that we ever leave Him, but the way we represent Him on earth is nuanced by how He made us. Jeremiah was an emotional person, and that did not change once He was fully baptized into The Father’s Being. But what did change, is that he came to express more and more The Father’s Heart through his own.
Now also there is the way of discipling the sensitive tender emotional person in God’s relationship with Jeremiah! How God disciples this type of sensitive soul. There is a model of the process of “the baptism of the human heart” here in how God relates to this Jeremiah, and his type of personality. Here is one who was hyper aware and sensitive, but was able to be taken into the sensitivity of God, and allow his own heart to be sanctified. To learn to differentiate his own feelings from God’s, but also to honor and be authentic with his own feelings. God honored his feelings, and even put Jeremiah’s personal complaints and emotions in the book! He let Jeremiah vent, and even quit along the way. God knew Jeremiah, and what he needed in order to make it all the way. His life in many ways is a model of the sanctification of the heart process or discipleship process of the feelers and sensitive ones-“heart knowers” on the earth. .Jeremiah was a single son of a priest who was obviously artistic and extremely sensitive or a “poetic soul”. But God called him and showed him how the strength of this “way”-once it was entirely baptized into His Being-could rock the earth. It was a “type” of strength Jeremiah contained. That the personal candle of his own heart, could blaze in the Father’s Furnace in a way which would shift the course of history. There is a pattern in Jeremiah’s story of how God works with the “sensitive” ones on earth. And what is possible through their lives.
God allowed Jeremiah to vent his personal emotions, and I also think God often comforted him. There is this need to comfort often in their relationship which points to how to disciple the “poetic soul”.
So, what we learn, in part by meditating on Jeremiah’s spirituality is how God relates to certain types of people. And what types of callings He then gives them on earth. With Jeremiah “types” God meets them emotionally first–at Jeremiah’s calling (Jeremiah 1), God confronts him; then God moves on to showing him images and visions. The emotional contact straight into the imagination or perception. There is the need for the emotional contact firstly, then a time to breath in the–ok, you see well. There is an encouragement from God there. You see and you know how to interpret, but you are still afraid of my calling on your life. I can work with that. We are watching God disciple an artistic prophet here. There is a powerful pattern in this.
Jeremiah’s prayer life:
And Jeremiah also occupied a very powerful place to pray from, within The Father. If we trace through Jeremiah’s life into where he dwelt within God, we find ourself in an enormous room! A womb like room filled with love and concern for all His creatures. The vast room of genuine caring.The dimensions of the heart of God astound us, and we no longer doubt the intensity of His compassionate care for all of us. That place is the origin of prayer, and is where true authority in our prayer life is found. (I wonder if this is why many artist are meant to guide us into God’s Heart?) Jeremiah was both a prophet and a sort of priest, in that he both expressed God’s feeling towards people, and the heart of the people towards God–including, and at times in the language of his own emotions! But in prayer, this man was in the space of power. To enter this area of The Father’s being is to be able to pray from true authority. Jeremiah knew the key to a truly powerful prayer life was to dwell in this space of The Father’s Heart. There is such a Peace and knowing there, and again trust is not a question. And when we pray from that space, there is no room for doubt. The way of Jeremiah guides us into this space in The Father’s Being, and once in this peaceful loving home, there is such clarity of knowing and truly grounded concern for all of creation, that we can become effective partners in our collaborations with God on earth!
