Passage Read: Jeremiah 45-48
Meditation Verses: 45:3-5
Thought
Baruch is among those in the last days of Judah to have a promise of protection because of their faith in and service for God. He probably didn't understand what it would cost him to become Jeremiah's scribe, but he found out. It wasn't wrong for him to grieve, especially when God's only comfort was that he would survive despite the destruction around him. He would still lose everything and be a fugitive or refugee, and he would be counted an enemy by those who took him away as a refugee! If Jeremiah was the weeping prophet, it would probably not be wrong to count Baruch as the weeping scribe.
Application
I don't have to feign happiness when the Lord decrees a hard things for me. He is still good and right and wise and holy, and He does these things for my far-off glory. He doesn't expect me to be joyful and happy in all His arrangements for me. There is joy in looking ahead, but not in looking at and enduring the circumstances God arranges for me. Even Jesus was stressed and grieved in the Garden, and in His trials. How many psalms did David write out of the anguish of his soul? God is present in my hard circumstances and will bring good eventually, but that doesn't mean I have to feel happy. It's ok for me to feel grieved. It will pass, but that doesn't lessen the pain or anguish of the present.