Buy The Field!

"The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of Shallum, your uncle is going to come to you and say, 'Buy my field at Anathoth. Because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.'... I knew this was the word of the Lord, so I bought the field at Anathoth." Jeremiah 32:6-9

The Lord asks tough things of his prophets. In this passage, there are wars all around the city, the Babylonian army has completely closed in and burned all crops, destroyed the land and is about to destroy the city of Jerusalem. It is certain to fall. Property values are plummeting to say the least. It would be like buying up a little piece of property in the west bank of Palestine right now, or in downtown Port au Prince Haiti where daily there is chaos, violence, no government able to protect people - or in Greensburg KS, a place where "normal life" has been completely disrupted. Yet here comes God with his eternal optimism. Buy this field. God says, "I am working here. I will turn things around here." What an act of faith by Jeremiah!

How often do we invest in the areas where God desires to work? Surely Jeremiah's decision to buy this particular field would have been considered "poor stewardship" by today's standards. When we look to plant new churches, we tend to look toward the growing suburb populations, but what about the decaying inner cities? Would we consider buying up some property in the decaying inner cities because we believe God is working there? We tned to see things like this as foolish investments and a waste of our - I mean God's - money. Yet if all the earth is the Lord's and everything in it (Psalm 24:1) and He leads us to invest in something that looks like a loser, isn't that actually good stewardship because it is stewarding (or managing) the resources in the manner that the owner of the resources desires them to be managed in? What field is God asking you to buy? Where is God asking you to invest? Are you doing it? Or are you holding back or not even considering it because it's 'bad stewardship'?

Gracious Lord, merciful and mighty, slow to anger and abounding in love, open our eyes to the fields you are showing us. Open our minds to think more like you. May we grow daily, as individuals and as your body in our churches to eb a little less like ourselves and a little more like you. Amen.

(Photo by Ortenesque www.sxc.hu)