Your Confinement is a Gift by Jill Briscoe

By Jill Briscoe

Are you climbing the walls after months of this stay-at-home order that feels like it will never end? Do you feel like you are under house arrest─trapped inside 24/7 with family while juggling kids, work, and school? Not being able to get out and enjoy a simple outing with friends or an evening out for dinner at a favorite restaurant can leave us feeling like we're prisoners in our own home.

The prophet Jeremiah could certainly relate. I n Jeremiah 36, he and Baruch continued their work with the Word of God and the opposition did their level best to silence them, even putting Jeremiah under house arrest. They did not, however, confine Baruch. Perhaps Baruch’s friends put in a good word for him. Maybe there were sympathetic people in the government than we know about who could pull a few strings. In any case, surely God’s hand kept Baruch free for the job He wanted him to do. Having Jeremiah confined to his quarters did not stop the men from doing their work. In fact, it was in this restricted situation that they accomplished their work, and precious scrolls were written.

I think of the apostle Paul in prison saying, “What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel” (Phil. 1:12). Would the prison epistles have been written without the prison? Hardly. Imagine doing without the book of Philippians! Would the book of Jeremiah be in our Bible today if Jeremiah had remained a free ma n? Jeremiah and Baruch learned to see an opportunity in every difficulty and used their time of forced inactivity to good advantage.

There are myriad ways you can understand the feelings of Jeremiah and Baruch. There is so much to do, and yet you have been put under house arrest! Use this time. If God wanted you out and about you would be out and about. The Lord gave the two men a gift of grace when He gave them this period of forced confinement─and He will do the same for us in our forced confinement due to the coronavirus.

I remember feeling as though I was under house a rrest when I was a young mother and my husband was traveling. I was shut up for endless days and nights in a small house with three children below school age. One day in the middle of my quiet time, a still small voice said, It’s a gift . Why don’t you say thank you? If I had failed the test of treating this period of time as a privilege rather than as a punishment, I would have missed the opportunity to begin to develop my writing skills. Looking back, I have never since had such a sweet time of productivity. Listen to God's voice. He is saying, “It’s a gift!”

God gave house arrest to Jeremiah, and he accepted it and used it for the Lord. “'Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now,’ the LORD instructed Jeremiah” (Jer. 36:2). So the two servants of the Lord used the t ough circumstances of arrest as a time to work hard to finish the scrolls. Jeremiah had to remember, perha ps with the help of notes, twenty years’ worth of messages, and Baruch painstakingly wrote them down.

How does God want to use your “house arrest”? What things can you do during your confinement that will count for the Lord and bring glory to Him? Opportunities abound. Ask Him and don't forget to thank Him for this gift!

Jill Briscoe was born in Liverpool, England, in 1935. Educated at Cambridge, she taught school until she married Stuart and began raising their three children. She has partnered with her husband in ministry for over 50 years, written more than 40 books, and traveled on every continent teaching and encouraging ministry leaders. Jill is the founder of Just Between Us. She c an also be heard regularly on the worldwide media ministry called Telling the Truth.