Jeremiah 45

Thus you are to say to him, 'Thus says the LORD, "Behold, what I have built I am about to tear down, and what I have planted I am about to uproot, that is, the whole land. Jer 45:4

Have you ever had someone try to comfort you in a situation, simply by telling you how much worse the situation could be? I remember watching a show one time where two guys are out on the ocean in a boat on a beautiful day. Suddenly the boat begins to take on water, and these two guys get their life jackets and prepare to go into the water. Eventually the boat sinks and these two guys are left treading water. The owner of the boat is devastated, but his friend tries to cheer him up by saying, "We'll it could have been worse." "How could it have been worse?" The friend says, "There could have been sharks in the water here." And of course, then a fin begins to circle them. Don't worry...this was a comedy so they didn't get eaten.

Baruch had simply done what God wanted him to do. He had written and delivered the words of Jeremiah and as a result had received much of the same grief and trouble that Jeremiah endured. I'm sure Baruch found this difficult to take, and probably slightly unfair. However the assurance that God gave was that Baruch's nation was going to crumble around him, and that God was going to allow it to happen. But Baruch was told that his life will be spared. He's not promised that it will be easy, but he's promised that he will live. I'm sure Baruch may have felt much like the man who jumped from a sinking ship into shark-infested waters. What did he have to live for? God wanted to continue using him. The Lord tells Baruch that his life will be preserved for all the places he will go. So there would be a lot of change in this man's life. You may feel that you're moving from one bad situation to another, or that your string of misfortune is more than most people around you are going through. Never forget that God is completely aware of who and where you are. There is never a time that He is taken by surprise by an event in your life, and just because your plans are thrown off kilter, doesn't mean that His are. Don't allow yourself to dwell on circumstances. Instead, pray diligently for wisdom and understanding on how you should handle situations you find yourself in. People who fail to pray, find themselves praying even harder later in an attempt to undo the work they attempted on their own.