Shade Boys – Rewind
For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes. Jeremiah 31:25 NASB
Languishes – Today let’s start at the end. Why? Because that’s where we might be—at the end. At the end of ourselves. At the end of trying to please Him. At the end of the daily discipline. At the end of hoping for something better. When we reach this point, we encounter a pause. A pause in the spiritual battle. A sort of relational hiatus. A break—not quitting but just someplace where we stop thinking, stop debating, stop demanding—and just breathe. Just let it all go for a bit. Stop fighting while trying to keep going. Perseverance might be the essence of faith, but right now perseverance means nothing more than to quit trying.
It’s like knowing you’re still friends but you haven’t communicated in a long time. The bond is still there, but you’re out of touch. The daily interaction is missing. But this isn’t emptiness. This is the place where our feelings, whatever they might be, are no longer analyzed to see if they are acceptable and accepted. This is the place were religious practice is no longer a substitute for true spirituality. Steenkamp offers several examples of what he calls “spiritual by-passing,” i.e., using spiritual language and spiritually constructed morals to avoid expressing true feelings. These include not wanting to hurt someone else because of what I might express, not wanting to confront the past because it’s just easier to let it go, claiming that we should forgive and moving on, converting the personal healing process into a detached spiritual path, and devoting oneself to kindness and compassion in order to cover up emotional trauma.[1] God becomes a way of masking ourselves from true emotional disconnectedness when we use religious terms and religious feelings to keep at bay those emotions that would upset our coping systems. We use Bible study, prayer, tithing, church activities, etc. as distracting agents so that we will not have to face our fears of worthlessness or rejection. We run to “Jesus” to get saved or be forgiven rather than expose ourselves as vulnerable and anxious. None of it works—in the end. We still arrive here, where all the cognitive power we used to keep from being overwhelmed is impotent, a flaccid reminder that we are emotionally spent.
Jeremiah knew this place. For years he struggled to push God’s people toward reformation. For years he encountered rejection, scorn, and abuse. And then he reached the end—the pause in all that he did, the place where it just didn’t matter any more. That’s when his God talked about satisfying the weary and refreshing the languishing. We need to know what God means by those verbs, rāwâ and mālēʾ, but before we can experience refreshment, we need to feel where we are—languishing.
The Hebrew word is very infrequent (dāʾēb). It’s used in Psalm 88, Job 41 and Deuteronomy 28. Perhaps the Paleo version adds something. Dalet-Aleph-Bet (door-strength-house) reminds me of a particular ritual in Africa. It’s called “the shade boys.” The men sit on the ground, leaning against the wall of the house, in the shade. As the sun moves, they move. But they never leave the house. Life is just too difficult to try to do something. Better to just move with the shade. They languish. They wither and waste away, each day staying in the shade. Never really engaging in opportunities. Being content to just sit it out. Maybe that’s where we are now. Shade boys. Just trying to avoid the heat, the scorching light of a world without comfort or compassion. Once again, Steenkamp touches our reality: “The anger that has no vent in tears makes other organs weep.”[2] So it is with all the other emotions. If there is no place, no safe place, to let them loose, we languish.
God comes to Jeremiah while Israel is withering. “For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes.” Now we’re ready to hear what He has to say. Now we need the verbs.
Topical Index: dāʾēb, languish, Jeremiah 31:25
[1] Cf, J. Steenkamp, SHIP: The Age-Old Art of Facilitating Healing, p. 156.
[2] J. Steenkamp, SHIP: The Age-Old Art of Facilitating Healing, p. 70.
