Bury the Belt!

Sometimes, I think we just need to be reminded that God really doesn't fit in the boxes we try to squeeze Him down into.  There are times where people say that God told them to do something, and I hear what it is, and I think "Yeah, right."  Not because it's unBiblical, but because it's so weird.  OR I hear God tell me to do something unorthodox, and I think it's just my imagination, or at least hope it is.  I mean, God doesn't REALLY ask us to do stuff that's strange, does He?  He's God, why would He act any differently than we do?  

Then I read something like this, out of Jeremiah 13.  


1 "This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.”

2 So I bought a belt, as the Lord directed, and put it around my waist. 3 Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time:4 “Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.”

5 So I went and hid it at Perath, as the Lord told me. 6 Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there.”

7 So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to me:9 “This is what the Lord says: ‘In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.10 These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt—completely useless!

11 For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to me,’ declares the Lord, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’ "

Yeah.  God says "Go buy a belt." (Really?!)  Then later, He says, "Go bury it in another town."  After letting Jeremiah wonder if he was nuts for a few days, God told Him to go dig it up.  It was ruined.  

Did God really tell Jeremiah to spend money on something, then bury it and ruin it?  That doesn't make any sense!  That's not logical!  That's just stupid!  God doesn't tell us to do stuff like that.

Well, apparently, He does.  Be careful not to blow off what you hear from Him, just because it doesn't fit in with what you consider "normal".  Normal is whatever God says it is.  What is He calling me or you to do that doesn't make sense?