A PRAYER OF HUMILITY

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.”

“Discipline me, Lord, but only in due measure—not in Your anger, or You will reduce me to nothing. Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, on the peoples who do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have devoured him completely and destroyed his homeland.”

Jeremiah 10:23-25

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Here’s an absolute truth about all of us, a truth no one can escape:

We are all sinners.

It’s true because God’s word says it’s true in Romans 3:23:

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Note here there are no exclusions. No one gets a free pass from their wicked deeds.

ALL have sinned and ALL fall short of God’s glory. None of us are worthy of any good thing from God. None of us.

This is why we should model the attitude of the prophet Jeremiah as he lifts up a prayer of humility in the closing verses of Chapter 10 from the book that bears his name. Look again at his prayer here:

“Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.”

“Discipline me, Lord, but only in due measure—not in Your anger, or You will reduce me to nothing. Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, on the peoples who do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have devoured him completely and destroyed his homeland.” Jeremiah 10:23-25

As we look at Jeremiah’s words, we find two key components that should be a part of any prayer of humility: confession and petition.

First the confession:

“Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.”

Jeremiah knows that everyone fails and falls in this area. We all will choose to act as if we own our lives, like we somehow created ourselves and as a result are our own masters. We direct our own steps and actions with no sense of accountability for our actions. After all, we don’t want to be restricted. We want to do what we want to do.

Of course, this life attitude is never going to cut it with a God who made us and reigns over us as the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Maker and Master of all things and all things are to be subordinate to Him. We are to live with a sense of enslavement to the One we are to fully submit to. It’s His expectation. It’s our obligation.

And yet, we choose to reject and ignore God as if there are no ramifications for doing so. Unfortunately, we will all learn that this isn’t the case for God can and will bring His judgment upon anyone who willfully sins and refuses to turn away from it.

This brings us to the second main component of any prayer of humility: petition.

 “Discipline me, Lord, but only in due measure—not in Your anger, or You will reduce me to nothing.”

The first thing we should notice here is that Jeremiah does not adopt the stance that he is undeserving of punishment. He knows he has sinned before a God who hates sin and is ready to accept the discipline he deserves.

You see, God’s discipline doesn’t need to be viewed as a negative thing. Rather, we can and should look at His correction as a continuing step to teach us how to be the people He desires us to be, the people we should want to be. After all, look at the root meaning of the word “discipline” and you fill find that it means “to teach”. What good is punishment if we don’t learn something from it? We will only go back and repeat the wrongs of the past. No, a deterrent is not only needed but necessary and we should not begrudge it but rather receive it with thanks because God is showing He loves us enough to mold and shape us to be someone better than we were when we sinned.

The second and final thing we need to recognize in Jeremiah’s petition is that he is fully aware of God’s infinite power and might. Jeremiah knows that standing in the crosshairs of God’s judgment is a precarious position to be in because just a small measure of God’s wrath would be enough to completely obliterate the prophet, reducing him to nothing. Thus, Jeremiah asks for God’s penalty to come upon him but also asks for mercy to be applied so he would not have to perish.

Confession and petition. They are the two fundamental parts of any prayer of petition and through Jeremiah, we see how to apply them perfectly to our own prayer life for two things are just as certain today as they were back in Old Testament Israel when it comes to the people of God:

We are all sinners before a God who is infinitely powerful and able to reduce any of us to nothing.

This is why we, like God’s prophet in today’s scripture passage, need to consistently fall on our knees before our Master and Maker, lifting up prayers of humility.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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