These are the verses I read from Jeremiah. I knew they were about complacency or at least putting my trust in what is “normal” and thus avoiding change, chaos or the unknown. Definitely avoiding a relationship with God and that was okay because everything was “fine.”

So now, the time is coming when I will send people to pour Moab out like wine. They will empty its wine jars and break them in pieces. Then the Moabites will be disillusioned with their god Chemosh, just as the Israelites were disillusioned with Bethel, a god in whom they trusted. – Jeremiah 48:11-12 GNT

God loves me too much to leave me there and God will step in and will rescue me from myself. Then I read something from Spurgeon based on these two verses and his challenge was so great it gave the Holy Spirit room to breathe into my life. I thought I could share some key points but I cannot. I need to share the entire paragraph with you.

The rapid results of this consumption are just these: a man in such a state soon gives up communion with God; it is not quite gone at first, but it is suspended. His walk with God is broken and occasional. His prayers very soon suffer. He does not forget his morning and evening devotions — perhaps, if he did, conscience would prick him, but he keeps up that form. However, he has lost the soul of prayer, and only retains the shell. There is no wrestling prayer now. He used to rise in the night to plead with God, and he would wrestle till the tears fell fast, but it is not so now. He does pray, but not with that divine energy which made Jacob a victor at Jabbok’s brook. By degrees, his conversation is not what it used to be. He was once very earnest for Christ, and would introduce religious topics in all companies. He has become discreet now, and holds his tongue. He is quite ready to gossip about the price of wheat, and how the markets are, and the state of politics, and whether you have been to see the Sultan; but he has no words for Jesus Christ, the King in his beauty. Spiritual topics have departed from his general conversation. And now, strange to say, “the minister does not preach as he used to do:” at least, the backslider says so. The reason why I think he is mistaken, is, that the word of God itself is not so sweet to him as it once was; and surely the Bible cannot have altered! He was wont to read it and feast on the promises; he used to carry a pocket Testament with him wherever he went, and take it out that he might have a sip by the way: where is his Testament now? As for going to hear the word of if God now, it is dull work; he does come, he would not like to be away –  if David’s seat were empty, he would begin to be pricked in his conscience – he is there, but he is there in vain. There is little savour about the word to him. Hymns which used to be delighful for their melody, now pall upon his ears, and he is now noticing the tune, or whether somebody else sings correctly; while the prayers in which he used to join with so much fervency, are very flat to him now. He in poring over his ledger even in the house of God. These are the grey hairs which come upon a man, and sometimes, for want of self-examination, multiply rapidly, and the man knows it not till spiritual dotage has come upon him. After awhile, the professor slackens a good deal in his liberality; he does not think the cause of God is worth the expense that he used to spend upon it; and as to his own personal efforts to win souls, he does not give up his Sunday-school class, nor his street preaching, nor distributing of tracts, perhaps, but he does till mechanically, it is a mere routine. He might just as well be an automaton, and be wound up, only the fault is, that he is not wound up, and he does not do his work as he should do; or, if he does it outwardly, there is none of the life of God in what he does. Do you know such a man? He who speaks to you knows him, and has wept over him. That man has sometimes been himself. I do not think I am less earnest than the most of my fellow Christians, and, indeed, I could not bear to be like some of them; but still, I am very far from being contented with myself. I pray God that I may never sink down to the dishonourable depths of indolence which some Christians live in, sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue speak no more my Master’s word — I were utterly unworthy to be his minister, if such were the case; but oh! I would be baptised in fire, and live in it as in my element, and breathing the immortal flame of zealous love to Jesus; but I cannot as I would. This heavy heart, this sluggish clay, still make me move heavily when I would fain fly as a seraph in my Master’s service. Brethren, do you never feel the same? I know some of you do, for I can see the traces of it. Very much of this sluggishness is brought on by long-continued respite from trouble.

“More the treacherous calm I dread than tempests rolling overhead.”

We should ask God for things with boldness and specificity, iwth ardor, honesty, and diligence, yet with patient submission to God’s will and wise love. All because of Jesus, and all in his name. – Timothy Keller