January 4
“Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, ‘How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ The people did not answer him a word.”
1 Kings 18:21
Yesterday was my birthday and tomorrow it will be my daughter’s, Poppy, birthday! In our household, January 4 is a weird, “in-between day-y” — we’re not fully out of the celebratory season of birthdays, Christmas and New Year, and we’re not back in work mode. We are always aware that our season of parties is coming to an end, but there’s still more to come. I struggle to fully enjoy the present because my mind is already on my work to-do list and the emails that await me, but I know that being half in and half out is robbing me of so much.
In the verse I chose to explore today, I’m aware that to be a prophet is a tough calling — their job is to bring truth to people who don’t want to hear it. This verse from the prophet Jeremiah was a huge challenge in its time and should present a similar challenge today.
How many of us have been half in and half out for seasons of our faith? We’ve tried to keep one foot in the corporate ladder, joining in the office gossip or we have made decisions to get ahead that compromised our integrity. We told ourselves that it was necessary and a one-off, but have tried and followed different rules of two kingdoms.
Jeremiah here reminds his listeners — and us — that the worship of God is not something that we can fold into the melting pot of options to help us make good decisions — as painful as that may be. There comes a point for each of us when we must choose to believe that God is who He says He is and to be all in or to disregard Him and pursue our desires instead.
Half in, half out isn’t the best of both worlds and it causes us to limp through both instead, not fully able to do whatever it takes to be ‘successful’ and not fully able to please our heavenly Father either.
As we enter the new year, my prayer is that we will give up on the “in-between-y” holy fudge* and pursue God wholeheartedly. Then this year, we won’t limp on, but instead, we have the opportunity to truly flourish with God at the center of all we do.
*Fudge is British slang for botching something or intentionally doing sub-par work.
