Jeremiah 20:11

 Jeremiah 20:11 says, But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.  Jeremiah may have felt persecuted, but he also knew that those who persecuted him would fail, because God was with him.  No matter how persecuted we may feel in the world today, if God is with us, then we have no reason to fear.  If you are a follower of Christ, putting your faith in Him as your Savior and Lord, then God will always be with you and you are secured by His love.  Verse twelve adds, But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause.  Jeremiah then asked to see God's vengeance on those who persecuted him.  I don't believe that this should be our prayer today though, since Jesus taught us a better and higher way.  I feel like many people look forward to the second coming so that those that they don't like will get what is coming to them, but we should instead be looking for more time so that they might instead claim the gift of salvation so they like we will not get what they deserved.  Verse thirteen continues, Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.  Jeremiah said that we should sing praises to God because He will deliver us from all the evil of this world in His own time.  We need to spend more time praising God than we do complaining about the world.  Verse fourteen declares, Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.  Then, after saying that we should sing praises to God, Jeremiah said that he regretted the day that he was born.  I believe that he was looking at all the problems in his life without looking to God in faith.  We should never despair the day that we were born or hate life so much that we wish we had never existed.  With our faith in God we should always delight in life as long as we live.  Verse fifteen adds, Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad. Jeremiah even asked that the man who brought the news of his birth, which made his father glad, be cursed.  Jeremiah's self pity made him wish that a man who had done nothing wrong be cursed.  We as followers of Christ can never afford to lash out at the world in self pity.  Verse sixteen continues, And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;  Jeremiah continued to call for the man who brought the news of his birth to be punished severely.  Jeremiah was one of the great prophets of God, and yet he was asking something of God that was totally outside of God's teachings and nature.  We need to be careful that we do not allow our personal feelings to lead us to an attitude that is contrary to the will of God.  Verse seventeen declares, Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.  Jeremiah wished that he had never been born or that he had died in the womb.  That is a lot of self pity.  Verse eighteen asks, Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?  Jeremiah asked why was he born if he was only going to see labor and sorrow and have his days consumed by shame.  No matter how bad life may get, as followers of Christ we can never be ruled by self pity.  We instead need to continue to sing praises to God.