The shrinking army

"All the army officers....accompanied by all the people, small and great, came to Jeremiah the prophet and said, "We have a request. Please listen. Pray to your God for us, what's left of us. You can see for yourself how few we are! Pray that your God will tell us the way we should go and what we should do."" Jer 42: 1-3

So, how did it work out? At the end of the chapter Jeremiah says "Well, now I've told you, told you everything he said, and you haven't obeyed a word of it, not a single word..."

Two things come to mind: 1) When I read "all the army officers" I thought of the Salvos (only a Salvo would think of that!) - you can see how small we are. What should we do? There are some parallels there between the remnants of Judah and the Salvation Army. And 2) having asked for guidance they didn't listen to a word of God's answer.

Well, we are a shrinking army, in the western world anyway. But do we listen to God when he gives his answers to our prayers? Often we, both individually and as an organisation, go to God with our request and also secretly with the answer that we almost demand God gives us. If the answer doesn't fit, we won't listen to it.

The end of chapter 42 is quite gruesome - "So now let me tell you what will happen next: You'll be killed, you'll starve to death, you'll get sick and die in the wonderful country where you've determined to go and live." They certainly got their comeuppance. We have to be careful not to ask God for an answer and then refuse to listen to it and wilfully do the opposite.