Jer 28:1-17 / Mt 14:13-21
For us Christians, it’s a matter of faith that life is a wonderful gift from God, but there’s no doubting that often enough this wonderful gift can get pretty difficult. In such times it’s only our hopes that keep us going.
Today’s Old Testament reading from Jeremiah gives us a look at hope in action. The prophet Hananiah announces with great confidence that very shortly Israel will be released from its bondage and its people will be returned from exile. These are comforting words for a people so long oppressed. There’s just one problem, says Jeremiah: they don’t come from God. They are mere wishes on Hananiah’s part, and they’ll go the way of all mere wishes — down the rabbit hole, never to be seen again.
How many of our hopes are based on such rootless wishing? Probably more than we’d like to admit. If that’s so, then we have some work to do in restoring a proper balance to our relationship with God. We have to give God something to work with, something solid to build on. A holy man once put it very well, “Pray as if everything depended on God, but work as if everything depended on you.”
If we grow solid roots, God will never let us down.
