Day 19 of Illumination: You will never be enlightened if you refuse to hear “bad” news.

“Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the Babylonian officers, you and your family will live, and the city will not be burned down. But if you refuse to surrender, you will not escape! This city will be handed over to the Babylonians, and they will burn it to the ground.’””

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭38‬:‭17‬-‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

In ancient times messengers were used to convey official news such as the terms for surrender or other demands from one side of a conflict to the other. Sadly, these messengers sometimes garnered the wrath of the one receiving the bad/unwelcome news. Thus we have the phrase, “Don’t kill the messenger.”

Now, nobody wants to hear bad news—and when subjected to it—we tend to be resentful of the one who brings it.

Many years ago a person came to speak to me about their engagement to another person in the church. This person led with saying that God had brought them together with the other person. Now, please understand, a person’s claimed that what they are about to tell you came from God, presents a very sticky situation. It nearly dares you to say anything contrary to what they are saying.

To be honest with you, knowing both of the individuals, I seriously doubted that the Lord had been the matchmaker for this union. Further, the person began to go into great detail about the compulsive tendencies of the soon-to-be-spouse, saying how this behavior was maddening to them.

Knowing that I was about to enter a minefield, I diplomatically broached the potential difficulties this relationship would face. As you might suspect, each of my attempts at giving this person godly counsel was quickly rebutted and I saw that I might as well be whistling Dixie.

The marriage happened and collapsed under its own weight in a matter of weeks.

Generally, when a person thinks about becoming spiritually enlightened, the first thing that comes their mind is not their need to know things contrary to what they really want to hear. But, the fact is, those who are unwilling to hear “bad” news, will never be able to walk an enlightened path.

On Day 10 of our “25 days of Illumination” we talked about our “sacred cows”: those areas we close off to any input from the Spirit of God. This discussion is not dissimilar from the discussion of sacred cows, but specifically references when we have decided that there is something we want to do, or something we want to be a certain way, and are unwilling to hear any contrary input from the Lord.

In our opening scripture we see the prophet Jeremiah giving Zedekiah some bad news. Now this bad news had been a long time coming with the Lord repeatedly warning Judah that if the people continued in disobedience, the Lord would turn them over to their enemies. But, as is often the case, the people did not repent and chose to punish Jeremiah (the messenger), rather than giving heed to the warning.

Having been given the bad news from Jeremiah, Zedekiah, king of Judah, said this:

““But I am afraid to surrender,” the king said, “for the Babylonians may hand me over to the Judeans who have defected to them. And who knows what they will do to me!” Jeremiah replied, “You won’t be handed over to them if you choose to obey the Lord. Your life will be spared, and all will go well for you.””

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭38‬:‭19‬-‭20‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Well, Zedekiah did not accept what Jeremiah said, and things ended very badly for him. Not only was Zedekiah taken into captivity, he was blinded right after watching both of his sons be executed.

If we really want the Lord to enlighten us, to help us begin to see things the way He sees them, we must approach Him with an open heart, not determined to only hear what affirms our thinking. Otherwise, we may well continue in the counsel of our own echo chamber, not only unenlightened, but potentially destroyed.

We light a nineteenth candle of illumination today by knowing this:

You will never be enlightened if you refuse to hear “bad” news.

#25daysofillumination