Jeremiah's Reluctance

Jeremiah was called “the weeping prophet” and if you read his book, you will quickly understand why. Jeremiah was called to prophesy the word of God when he was just a youth, and the word was this: judgment is coming! The intensity of this was compounded by the fact that Jeremiah began prophesying in the midst of a revival during the reign of King Josiah. God spoke to Jeremiah and commanded him to share the sobering truth that Babylon was coming to decimate Israel; naturally this stirred everyone up, including Jeremiah.

Jeremiah’s sorrow pervades the book and is not hidden from the reader. He wails at God in frustration—crying out that he wished he had never been born. Chapter nine tells of his desire to run away into the desert and hide. He was beaten and imprisoned numerous times, and even cast into a muddy well to die. His life was threatened time and time again, even by his own family. He prophesied for decades, through the various sieges of Jerusalem and, at the end of it all, was given the opportunity to live in Babylon because the Babylonians were impressed with his prophecies. Ultimately Jeremiah chose to remain with his people—the ones who had beaten, accused and threatened him. Those same people then kidnapped him, dragged him off to Egypt, and he was never heard about again.

The verse that inspired me the most for this piece was undoubtedly Jeremiah 20:9, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (ESV) I wanted to try to capture that moment where Jeremiah is attempted to keep God’s words at bay, but the fire within him is burning—God’s word is alive within and charged with power that cannot be held back!

Jeremiah even expresses his desire to leave his people at the beginning of his prophetic journey (by the end of it he knew he couldn’t leave them); he cries out in 9:2, “Oh that I had in the desert a travelers’ lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men.” (ESV) Here we see him attempting to run—a youth burdened to what feels like his breaking point…

In the background one can see Jerusalem, a typical city, but something is brewing in the heavens above. Jeremiah 30:23 gives the details, “Behold the storm of the LORD! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked.” (ESV). A tornado comes when hot and cold air systems collide, and this tempest of the Lord forms when the hot passion of God meets the brutal, cold indifference of people. In the context of that whirlwind, prophets arise.

I am ridiculously excited that this piece is done. The initial image came into my head at the end of September 2011, in a class taught by Corey Russell at IHOP University, and I’ve been picking away at it ever since. Whenever there was a teaching on Jeremiah, I would hear another phrase or verse that would profoundly impact me. For about a month the piece was nearly finished, but I didn’t know what to do above the city in the background—I knew I wanted something to show the spiritual activity there, but I wasn’t sure how to do it technically. Then mid-April 2012, the swirling clouds appeared in my mind while Corey was teaching again. Corey is passionate about the prophet Jeremiah, so I don’t doubt that the Lord ordained this image to come to me in Corey’s classes.

I modernized Jeremiah a little bit because he is not meant to be just a character in history; he is an archetype of intercessors at the end of the age. We are called to weep with Jesus over souls, cry out for mercy, and preach the true judgments that are coming if repentance doesn’t come. Jeremiah’s life is one to be studied and emulated fearlessly. God, raise up those who would weep with you! If you haven’t read Jeremiah, do so! I’ve hardly even skimmed the surface of it and I am so moved by Jeremiah’s intimacy with God…

This is one of the first traditional pieces in a while that I’ve been really excited about. I chose to do absolutely no editing on Photoshop to maintain the original quality of the 11 x 14 drawing. There are probably about 25 hours of work in this, from conception to completion.

Please do not use without permission!

Prints available! Note me if interested!