Much modern talk about God tends to reduce the creator to a living doll, who wants to give us a divine cuddle. There is no doubt that the essence of God’s being is love, but the experience of that love and of God’s being is not always an experience of comfort and ease. God can disturb the relaxed meditations of the satisfied and push believers to the breaking point. The awful power of God can overwhelm.

The language of the prophet Jeremiah reflects this experience of the might of God in language that can trouble people even today. The words of Jeremiah, “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed,” can also be translated, “O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed.” Commentators note that the Hebrew verb pātā, translated “duped” or “enticed,” carries overtones of sexual seduction as well as deception. The second verb, chāzaq, translated “too strong” or “overpowered” is an even stronger image; it can refer to sexual assault or rape and not just seduction. Jeremiah uses these images to describe his experience as a persecuted prophet called to preach an unpopular message—not just called but, he boldly says, “duped,” “enticed” and “overpowered.” He did not stand a chance.

The reason Jeremiah is mocked and is “all the day…an object of laughter” is that the message he has been sent to speak initially is “violence and destruction!” The “word of the Lord has brought me derision and reproach all the day,” Jeremiah says, like the punch in the face from the priest Pashhur and a day in the public stocks (Jer 20:2). But not only did Jeremiah not stand a chance, he also had no choice: “I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.” The word of God, the word of truth, overpowers Jeremiah, like fire burning in his heart, and he must speak. It might be this image of fire that correlates so well with the soothing picture of the psalmist, who speaks of seeking God because his “soul thirsts for you,” his “flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” God, whose word creates this burning fire of conviction and truth, is also the only one who can quench the flame and the thirst.

We find both of these elements of the search for God and God’s overwhelming and consuming nature in the New Testament. After Peter has correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah, he has on his mind the triumphant establishment of God’s kingdom, with himself, Peter the Rock, as the happy viceroy of the Messiah. Jesus tells them of a different way in which he will “suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Peter objects to God’s way and begins to rebuke Jesus: “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” The problem, Jesus says, is that Peter is “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Jesus, submissive to God’s will, not his own desires, finds God’s way irresistible. He has no choice but to follow.

The way of fire seems designed only to consume us, but when we enter this path, what seemed like a way of destruction is quenched by the life-giving waters of God. This is why Paul urges the church in Rome: “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” The will of God is not always the easy path, as Jeremiah and Jesus show, but the soul that thirsts for God will be satisfied only by the water that gives life, that allows us to transform our minds and souls and so to discern the will of God.

This article appears in August 18-25 2014.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.