Lord, I'm ready to quit!
No matter what
difficulties we encounter, we will find God with us when we are faithful to His
call
Five
times in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet bares his soul in a series of
desperate confessions, expressing his inner anguish because of the weight of
his prophetic office: 11:18-12:6, 15:10-21, 17:12-18, 18:18-23, 20:7-18. In the
first reading (most of his second "confession"), while not denying
the joy his vocation has brought him, Jeremiah nevertheless curses his birth
and voices his frustration at the Lord for the bitter fruits of his vocation.
God's
reply is not overly sympathetic, insisting on Jeremiah's repentance for his
nearly blasphemous complaints. But God does offer to renew Jeremiah's vocation,
and promises the protection of His presence.
Even
though our trials and tribulations aren't generally as torturous as were
Jeremiah's, most of us in all walks of life have moments when the weight of our
own vocation is overbearing - we focus on the suffering that it's brought us,
which seems to overshadow all the joys that are part of it too. And God's reply
is similar, re-calling us to fidelity in our vocation, and promising the
protection of His presence. No matter what difficulties we encounter, we will
find God with us when we are faithful to His call, whereas if we were to give
in to the temptation to abandon our vocation, we would also be abandoning God.