Monday, November 10, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Jeremiah 17-26
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 130
Key Verse
Jeremiah 22:23 — “O inhabitant of Lebanon, that makest thy nest in the cedars, how gracious shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee, the pain as of a woman in travail!”
Devotional Thought
Jeremiah stands in the gate of Jerusalem with a message no one wants to hear. The sin of Judah is graven on the table of their hearts “with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond” (17:1). Through him, God offers a choice that echoes down every generation: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm” or “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD” (17:5, 7). The one is like a scrub bush in the desert; the other like a tree planted by waters, whose leaf stays green in drought. Then God sends Jeremiah to the potter’s house, where he watches a marred vessel reshaped in the potter’s hand—a living parable: “as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand” (18:6). Yet the people answer, “There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices” (18:12). Jeremiah smashes a potter’s bottle in the valley of Hinnom and declares that a people who will not be remade will be broken. For this, Pashur the priest beats him and locks him in the stocks. Even Jeremiah staggers, crying, “O LORD, thou hast deceived me” (20:7), cursing the day he was born—yet confessing that God’s word was “as a burning fire shut up in my bones” (20:9).
It is November, the month of remembrance and of shortening days. The trees have shed their leaves; the year itself seems to wait. Into that waiting, Psalm 130 gives voice: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD” (130:1). The psalmist does not pretend the depths are shallow. He asks the question Jeremiah’s people refused to ask: “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” (130:3). The answer is the gospel of the Old Testament: “But there is forgiveness with thee” (130:4).
Here is the difference between Judah and the psalmist. Judah said, “There is no hope.” The psalmist says, “I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope” (130:5). Both were in the depths. One hardened; one hoped. The clay does not argue with the potter—it yields, and is remade. Jeremiah himself is proof that honesty and hope can live in the same bruised heart: he curses his birthday and still sings, “Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers” (20:13).
This week, you may feel the iron pen writing on your own heart—some habit, some wound, some failure you cannot ungrave. Do not say, “There is no hope.” The Potter’s hand is still on the wheel, and His mercies are new every morning. “Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption” (130:7).
Reflection
- Where have you been saying “There is no hope” instead of placing your trust in the LORD—and what would it look like this week to let the Potter reshape that marred place in your life?
- Jeremiah kept speaking God’s word even when it cost him the stocks and the mocking. What “burning fire shut up in your bones” is God asking you not to keep silent about, and to whom should you speak it?
Prayer
O LORD, out of the depths we cry unto Thee. If Thou shouldest mark iniquities, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, and so we come. Search our hearts, try our reins, and do not let us be like clay that hardens against the Potter’s hand. Remake what is marred in us, as seemeth good unto Thee. When Your word is a reproach and a derision, make it a burning fire in our bones that we cannot forbear. We wait for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. With Thee is mercy and plenteous redemption; redeem us from all our iniquities, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 130:1 — “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.”