‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

    and we are not saved.’

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,

    I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

    Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of my poor people

    not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water,

    and my eyes a fountain of tears,

so that I might weep day and night

    for the slain of my poor people!

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him…

Howard Macy is retired from teaching at George Fox University and continues to minister in person and through writing as he can. Early in life he was a preacher’s kid living in Camas on the hill above the distinctively-scented paper mill. His father was the pastor at the Forest Home Friends Church there. His most recent book is Discovering Humor in the Bible: An Explorer’s Guide. A forthcoming book is tentatively titled Befriending the Prophets.

Who needs to hear a truth that you are “situated and equipped” to tell? What is your ministry–who needs the love you are “situated and equipped” to give? Who around you is feeling called to some important work and needs your support, your “yes we can”? Who may be ready and waiting to support you in some important next step?

“I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out…”