God stopped for a man

"The word of the LORD came unto me : Before forming you in the womb of your mother, I knew you, and before you were born I had consecrated you, I had made you a prophet for the nations. I replied : Ah ! Eternal Lord, I do not know how to speak, because I am too young. The LORD said to me : Do not pretend that you are too young, for you will go and find all those to whom I will send you, and you will tell whatever I command you" (Jeremiah 1: 4-7).

Jeremiah had the call to go to the nations and kingdoms, yet the first word God gave him expressed his love for the individual. This Jeremiah, unknown to all, was known to God before he was known by anyone. God had seen it before no eye saw it. And God had called him before no one called him again. Jeremiah was not to forget the interest of God for man. In the same way that God had been interested in him before he came out of his mother's womb, so Jeremiah had to adopt his character and become interested in man.

Jeremiah thought he was an uninteresting child. It was in this defect that Timothy was falling, when Paul encouraged him that no one should despise his youth (1 Timothy 4:12). We sometimes think : "What interest would God have in me ?". It is also the exclamation of David when he exclaimed : "What is man, that you may remember him, and the son of man, that you may take care of him ?" (Psalms 8: 5) Is not God's interest for us amazing ? God stopped for a man ! What a wonder to our eyes ! And if God has stopped for a man, we too must be able to stop for a man, be he young, old, or uninteresting.

Let us pray : "Father, help me never find anyone uninteresting, but that every human being you have created is important enough to me."

Jeremy Sourdril