Week 8: Jeremiah Part 1

This week we began to talk about the prophet Jeremiah.  Jeremiah often gets the wrap of being the "prophet of doom" because he delivered messages to Judah for 40 years, and it was often bad news for Judah.  Most of the people thought he was ridiculous and kept blowing him off.  We talked about how Jeremiah was probably similar to some of the street corner prophets we see today with signs that say "The End is Near!"  Most people walk right past these people, ignoring their messages of doom.  So we decided to play a little game.  We split off into three groups and created our own "doomsday" signs.  The catch was, each group received a different "character" to write a doomsday sign for.  For example, a professional hockey player's sign might say "The end is near!  My last tooth just got knocked out!"  Or an astronaut's sign might read "The end is near!  They're sending me to Pluto!"  Then the other groups have to guess who the sign is written for.  We had signs for parents, dentists and computer geeks--all which were very creative!

One thing to note about Jeremiah, is since he prophesied for 40 years, he was very young when God called him to be a prophet.  We read Jeremiah 1:4-10 and 1:17-19 together.  Jeremiah thought that his young age made him inadequate to do God's work.  We talked about how sometimes people see teenagers as inadequate to do things because they are young.  But, when God calls you to do something, God will be with you as you accomplish it!  We talked about others in the Bible who despite "inadequate" age or ability, served God.  We thought of people like Mary who was really young when God told her she would give birth to Jesus, and David who was thought to be too young and weak to defeat Goliath, and Moses who had trouble speaking and yet led the people to the Promised Land!  We see that God uses people of all ages and abilities to make amazing things happen.  No matter how young or old you are or what skills and gifts you may have, God CAN and WILL use you to help bring about His kingdom!  Before playing some more games, we each pulled out a piece of paper with a name of someone else in the room on it.  This person is our prayer partner for the week and we have committed ourselves to praying for that person each day...praying that they will not feel inadequate, but will know that God is with them and will help them accomplish everything God is calling them to do!