What's In It For Me?

We can hardly operate without this fundamental question: "What's in it for me?" Sometimes it's blatant; sometimes it's subtle. Even when we're being "selfless" we're most often operating under an underlying, "I'll feel better when I do this for them than if I hadn't." The problem, of course, is that we're such poor judges of what's in it for us. We think "A" would be so marvelous and find out we would have been better off with "B". Joseph certainly didn't start out thinking that being tossed into a well and then sold into slavery was a good thing for him, but at the other end of that nightmare road he declared, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" (Gen 50:20).

One of the most common objections to God -- from skeptics and believers alike -- is the problem of evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? If we're not succumbing to it, we try to solve it with little tricks like, "It'll work out in the end" or "I must have done something wrong." Our approach is generally "I'll tell myself it's not that bad." And we hold out for ourselves the promise that things will get better. "Every cloud has its silver lining." "What's in it for me?" at its core.

The prophet Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. He had it really bad. He was commissioned by God to tell Judah they needed to repent or be punished. You can imagine he wasn't well received. He was threatened by his own, locked up, and tormented. They didn't repent and Jerusalem was destroyed. How did Jeremiah deal with it? "I must have done something wrong." No. "It'll get better." No. "Things aren't that bad." No.

Jeremiah saw himself as oppressed by God (Lam 3:1) without hope (Lam 3:7-9). "My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is" (Lam 3:17). So where did he go to ease this genuine burden?

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in Him." (Lam 3:22-24)

Relief wasn't sufficient for Jeremiah. "Things will get better" didn't help. Jeremiah's confidence and, therefore, hope was not in what he would get out of it. He simply wanted the Lord. That was sufficient.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Great is His faithfulness. Is that sufficient?