Crappy Package

Have you ever felt unjustly criticized?
How about justly criticized, but just didn't want to hear it?
Or, justly criticized, but in a pretty harsh manner?

I heard a guy recently mention that he received some criticism in a pretty harsh way. The problem was, it was pretty legit.  However, his complaint to God was; "Why did you have to send this criticism in such a 'crappy package'?"

God's answer (according to him): I wanted to see if you were humble enough to receive it.

Ouch!

I'm not saying it's right to rip into people.  It's not.  But,  are we able to hear God -- even if it comes in  a "crappy package"?

This sort of reminded me of Jeremiah.  I've been reading this book lately.  It seems that most of what we know about Jeremiah are the verses in chapter 29.  You know, the good verses that tell us that God wants to prosper us.  Funny, we don't talk about the rest of Jeremiah much.  It's not that pleasant a book.  That poor guy had a tough calling.  He was told to bring bad news (i.e. "crappy message") to his people.  He told the people that because of their disobedience, they were going to be overthrown and captured.  But -- they didn't want to hear it.

It didn't go well for ol' Jeremiah.  In chapter 36 the king burned Jeremiah's scroll (chapter 36).  Nice, huh?  At one point he gets tossed into an old abandoned cistern that was all muddy in the bottom and left for dead (chapter 38).  Not seeing a lot of humility from the king or the people here are we?

So what happens?  Well, in chapter 39, sure enough, down goes Jerusalem. Captured and taken off into captivity (at least the ones Babylon let live).

A crappy message isn't a bad thing -- if we're humble enough to hear it.