Help Us For The Sake Of Your Own Reputation

The people say, “Our wickedness has caught up with us, LORD,

but help us for the sake of your own reputation.

We have turned away from you

and sinned against you again and again. . . .

We are known as your people.

Please don’t abandon us now!” Jeremiah 14:7, 9

THEY HAD INHERITED a land flowing with milk and honey. It was a fruitful land that echoed the fertility of the Garden of Eden. But now all of that was in the past. We read in Jeremiah 14 that the wells were dry, the ground was parched, and everyone was confused and desperate from the relentless drought conditions. It seemed that the whole creation was groaning under the weight of Judah’s sin and that God had become “like a stranger in the land” (verse 8, ESV).

Jeremiah was pleading with God for his people, knowing full well that they were getting what they deserved. There was nothing in Judah that Jeremiah could point to as deserving of God’s mercy. But there were specific things about God that Jeremiah pointed to in his pleas for mercy —the credibility of God’s name, the honor of God’s throne, the stability of God’s covenant. If God did not forgive and restore his people, his name would be brought into disrepute. God could not be God unless he saved his people. God’s glory was made known by the exercise of his grace. So Jeremiah pressed in to the God who called these people to be his people and pleaded with him to save his people for the sake of his own reputation.

In this, Jeremiah teaches us how to pray for our children when it seems that everything in their lives has dried up and become desperate. Instead of asking God to do something for their sake, or based on what they deserve, we ask him to do something for his sake, based on who he is. We keep our prayers fixed on the glory of God.

Lord, we ask for your help, but not because we have done anything to deserve it. The truth is, we’ve done nothing that could put you in our debt. We ask for your help because we know that you are a God who loves to save. You are a God who rains down grace on people who don’t deserve it. So send the rains of your grace into our lives and into ________’s life. Soak us in your undeserved favor for the glory of your name.