Early this morning, during my personal Bible study, I was captivated by this word: Cursed are those who trust in mortals and make flesh their strength…Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord (Jeremiah 17.5a, 7a)
Jeremiah seems to suggest I can choose to be cursed or blessed.
A strange way of thinking. For much of life affecting whether I feel cursed or blessed is beyond my control:
Natural events, like weather…
Policies of societies and governments…
Others’ attitudes and actions.
Therefore, being (surely, feeling) cursed or blessed is less choice and more circumstance. Moreover, I tend to consider cursed those who don’t possess worldly advantages of abundance and prominence, and blessed are they who do.
On second thought, Jeremiah, as I interpret him, dismisses my definitions. For his focus is not life’s externals, but rather my values. In this, he does more than moralize against a bogus value system in which material things are the measure of worth. His subject is my inward spiritual condition of cursedness or blessedness of which my value system, whether false or true, is the visible sign, the outward symptom.
A question at the core of it all: Who do I call “God”? What do I accord ultimate, supreme worth?
And that is my choice.
© 2023 PRA
Illustration: The Prophet Jeremiah (c. 1508-1512), Michelangelo (1475-1564)
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 