My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent, for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
– Jeremiah 4:19
This is one of many times in the book of Jeremiah where we see the prophet Jeremiah’s heart for God’s people. It’s a reflection of God’s heart for his people. Jeremiah knows the judgment is coming upon God’s people for their sin.
Jeremiah 4:19 pictures a heart breaking for those far from God.
He’s calling them to repentance, and the walls of his heart are bursting for them. “My anguish, my anguish!”. There’s an exclamation point there. “I writhe in pain!”. Another exclamation point. “Oh the walls of my heart!”. Another exclamation point. “My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent!”. Why? Because I’m longing for God’s people to turn from their sin and trust in him, and to not experience the judgment that’s coming upon them.
And I read this and I think, God, I want a heart like that. God give us hearts that beat wildly. That are bursting because we know the people around us who don’t know you are on a road that leads to eternal suffering. I just realized I’m already praying. Let’s just keep praying.
Jeremiah 4:19 teaches us to ache for the lost with godly anguish.
God, we pray for hearts like this. I think about Paul in Romans 9 saying, I would do anything. I would thrust myself into hell if that would help my people, the Jewish people, miss the suffering that they are headed toward, be saved from their sin. Think about Jesus weeping over the people of Jerusalem. God, we pray, make us people who weep over the lost. I pray for that in my life. I pray for that in each of our lives. We pray for hearts that are stirred, compelled, just overwhelmed with compassion for the lost around us.
Those who are caught in sin, on a road that leads to everlasting judgment. Never, ever, ever ending judgment. God, we pray you cause our hearts to beat in a way that reflects your love for the lost and anguish, writhing in pain, the walls of our heart bursting. God, we pray for that. Do that work in us, we pray, in such a way that we might say with Jeremiah, we cannot keep silence, so that we speak. God, help us to speak your gospel today with urgency, with somebody around us. Help us to share the gospel today with urgency, with compassion, with love, and longing for people to come to know you. We pray for that. We pray for the heart of Jesus in us.
Prayer for the Boria Assam People
And God, we pray for this when we think about billions of people who’ve never heard the gospel, who don’t have access to the good news of the gospel right now, like the Boria Assam people of India for 200,000 of them, hardly any followers of Jesus among them, God, we pray you would cause our hearts to beat for thousands of people groups, and billions of people who don’t have the gospel and to live with urgency to get the gospel to them, to use our resources to spread the gospel to them.
God, we pray that the heart of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 4:19, ultimately, the heart of Jesus would be our hearts. We pray this in Jesus’ name according to Jeremiah chapter 4:19. May it be so, God. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
