how long before I see well?

And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond branch.” Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.” The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.” Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land.” (Jeremiah 1:11-14 ESV)


"The two visions, the blossoming almond branch and the pot of boiling water, were Jeremiah’s Harvard and Yale. The single-image visions burned themselves deep into the retina of his faith. By means of these visions he kept his balance and sanity and passion in the theater of God’s glory and through the holocaust of human sin."
Peterson, Run with the Horses

“What do you see, Jeremiah?”

Reading this opening chapter of Jeremiah through the years, I generally found myself shrugging my shoulders at the sight before Jeremiah. An almond branch. A boilling pot. So what? And so I would move on. Actually, that was my initial response to a whole lot of what I was reading – and often still is. The fact is, I think the greatest personal challenge I face is the challenge to really see. I feel I have a ways to go before hearing the Lord’s response to Jeremiah: “You have seen well.”

But as Peterson points out quite effectively, this twin vision was what transformed insecure prophet into an immovable rock in his generation. In fact “insecure” really isn’t strong enough – no more than our tepid translation that would put the words, “Ah, Lord” in Jeremiah’s mouth. “Ah” would really need to be something along the lines of “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” (slow motion, deep gutteral pain and disbelief – set before your eyes the greatest tragedy you have ever witnessed and then hear the painful exclamation that would escape your lips; that’s “Ah”).

Jeremiah was terrified.

And into his gloom and terror, yes, God spoke the assurance that he was with him, that he was putting his words in his mouth, that he had set him as a prophet to the nations. But he didn’t just tell him, he showed him. He gave him these two life-defining and sustaining visions. Budding hope and expectation in God’s faithfulness, and defined and limited calamity over which God is sovereign, both forever connected in Jeremiah’s consciousness every time he saw the early blossoming of the almond trees in Israel – blossoms forming while everything else around was still grey and dead – and every time he saw a pot of boiling water.

“I am watching over my word to perform it.”

Blossoming hope and expectation before the prospect of unavoidable, scalding pain – pain that would be poured out.

It takes me back to Habakkuk’s concluding song: “Though the fig tree does not blossom…yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” Jeremiah faced the crisis not just of a generation, but of the ages, one that simply could not and would not be avoided. No deep stashes of food would sustain anyone; no futures of gold and silver would tide them over through it. All would be swept away – including, it would seem, Jeremiah. But even in Egyptian exile he would see the almond branch blossom after the boiling pot had been fully poured out. Hope would remain.

Looking at that almond branch today, vividly brought home the question: how well do I see?

How easily do I teeter when exposed to whispered or headlined terrors and threats?

Why do I so naturally default to the negative, the cynical, the pessimistic, the suspicious?

How long will I allow fears to pull me inward, to isolate and divide and insulate within myself and between myself and others as I play cloak and dagger games in my own mind like some pathetic, second rate MacBeth?

How long will I cave in to the madness of society, of swirling politics and religion and human posturing and pontificating?

How long before I see well?

Why is it so hard to see the almond branch blooming?