“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”
~ Jeremiah 33:3
Hi James and Ellen,
Does it seem like to you that there is always a downside to everything? Your grandmaa and grandpaa were just with a short term ministry team of junior high kids that your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn took to Guatemala from the church in Holland, Michigan where they are the youth leaders. Your grandmaa and grandpaa took this short term ministry team from Beechwood Reformed Church that included fifteen junior high school kids, three chaperones and your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn to an area in Guatemala that is very different than where you are living in the United States. Your grandmaa and grandpaa took this short term ministry team to the Rio Dulce/Livingston area. It normally takes about five hours to make the 180 mile trip from Guatemala City to the coastal town of Puerto Barrios and then it takes at least another thirty minutes by boat to finally get to the Rio Dulce/Livingston area. The boat ride from Puerto Barrios to Livingston has the boat following the Guatemalan shoreline while it is out in the Caribbean. Livingston can only be reached by boat. The cars that are found in Livingston were brought to Livingston by boat. The boat ride from Livingston on the river Rio Dulce to the town of Rio Dulce takes over an hour. Do you like to ride in boats? Do you like to go to places where there are a lot of birds and a lot of different kinds of birds? Do you like to go to places where there are a lot of different kinds of fauna? Your grandpaa likes to go to new places where he can see new things. The Rio Dulce/Livingston area to your grandpaa is a really fascinating, fun area to visit. The downside of going to the Rio Dulce/Livingston area from where your grandmaa and grandpaa are presently living in Guatemala City is that it is a long, tiring trip on a road that seems to be constantly curving while going up or down tectonic uplifts. Another downside of being in the Rio Dulce/Livingston area is that the area is invariable hot and muggy. Snow was falling the morning when your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn left Holland for Guatemala with their junior high short term ministry team. The next day your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn were experiencing a sweltering, sticky Livingston, Guatemala with their short term junior high ministry team.
Do you know a kid who always seems to look at the downside of everything? A kid who always seems to find a downside in everything is a pessimist. A pessimist is a worrywart, wet blanket or Gloomy Gus. A pessimist tends to look at everything in a negative way. Do you find yourselves sometimes being a pessimist? Do you know a kid who always seems to look for the upside in everything? A kid who always seems to find an upside in everything is an optimist. An optimist is a dreamer, believer or realist. An optimist tends to look at everything in a positive way. Do you find yourselves sometimes being an optimist? A trip from Guatemala City to the Rio Dulce/Livingston area to a pessimist would be to him or her a hot, tiring trip. A trip from Guatemala City to the Rio Dulce/Livingston area to an optimist would be to him or her a fun, fascinating trip. Your grandpaa thinks that Jeremiah was probably a pessimist. Jeremiah lamented a lot. A guy who is always lamenting is a guy who is always bemoaning, bewailing and/or deploring about something. Near the middle of the book that goes by Jeremiah’s name there are four chapters known as the book of consolation. Jeremiah 33 is the last chapter of these four chapters where God consoled, comforted and/or solaced Jeremiah. Jeremiah had been confined by Jerusalem’s leaders to the courtyard that is located in Jerusalem because of his ongoing outspokenness towards how God’s specially chosen guys and gals were living their lives. God’s specially chosen guys and gals were living their lives to serve themselves instead of living their lives worshipping and serving God. God over and over again had warned his specially chosen guys and gals to serve Him by being obedient to Him through faithfully observing the laws that He had given them through Moses because if they did not . . . as Jeremiah was doing whatever he was that he was able to do in Jerusalem’s courtyard, God personally visited Jeremiah. God told Jeremiah to tell His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Jerusalem that Babylonia’s army was soon going show up to overrun Jerusalem – that Babylonia’s army was going use siege ramps to get into Jerusalem and swords to overcome any guy who was in Jerusalem who would try to fight them. God was ready to make good the promise that He had made to His specially chosen guys and gals that He would harshly punish them if they stopped worshipping and serving Him.
While God was personally visiting Jeremiah in Jerusalem’s courtyard – which is where Jeremiah was being confined or restricted to by Jerusalem’s leaders to try to keep him from blabbing about what was going to happen to them, God told Jeremiah that the downside of the evil ways that His specially chosen guys and gals were living their lives in Jerusalem was to have them taken away to Babylonia to live. But God also told Jeremiah that He would have His specially chosen guys and gals return one day to Jerusalem to rebuild the city which Babylonia’s army was going to demolish. God instructed Jeremiah in verse 3 what to do “‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’” God also told Jeremiah that the covenant which He had made with His specially chosen guys and gals that they would always be His specially chosen guys and gals was much like the covenant that He had made with His creation – that He will never change the coming and the going of day and night. God wanted Jeremiah to know that the upside of how everything was going to unfold is that He is in total control of everything no matter what it is that is going down and that everything will come together to bring glory to His name.
Jeremiah 33 (363)