" Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." 7But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth';for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,and whatever I command you, you shall speak. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD." 9 Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. 10See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down,to destroy and to overthrow,to build and to plant." 11And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Jeremiah, what do you see?" And I said, "I see an almond branch." 12Then the LORD said to me, "You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it." 13The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north." 14Then the LORD said to me, "Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the LORD, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. 16And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. 17But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. 18And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you." Jeremiah 1:6-19 ESV
A friend of mine named Don Rogers once told me that God never calls us to do something that He cannot do. For example, in August 1745 the young missionary, a young missionary named David Brainerd was at a low point in a continuing saga of low points in his ministry. He wrote in his journal that it was the time of least hope, the least rational prospect of seeing God work among the Indians. His was constantly ill, completely exhausted and overwhelmed by the many trials and hardships in trying to minister to the Indians. He battled severe despondency over his consistent failures in attempting to reach the Indians for Christ. He writes, “I had little reason for hope that God had made me an instrument in the saving conversion of any of the Indians…my spirits being now so extremely sunk. And I do not know that my hopes in reaching the Indians had ever reduced to so low ebb.”
He found a place to pray that few of us would choose…under a bush in two feet of snow during subzero temperatures. He was not a masochist. He was a man obsessed with the plight of the Crossweeksung Indians. God made them Brainerd's calling and the focus of Brainerd’s compassion, and there under a bush, he poured himself in prayer on their behalf. Cold, exhausted, discouraged, and ill, coughing up blood, Brainerd was startled by a new strength, he rose and ran to the village, where he beheld one of the most marvelous sights in church history.
He came back to the village and spoke to the Indians of the love and compassion of God in sending His Son to suffer for the sins of men. The next thing you know all of the Indians were crying out in tears and mourning for Christ to wipe their hearts clean and for Jesus to have mercy upon them. The Spirit of God mightily moved among the Indians. Indians were being converted on a daily basis and hundreds of Indians became converted to Christ.
Was it because of David Brainerd? Brainerd writes, “Surprising were now the doings of the Lord, that I can say no less of this day than that arm of the Lord was powerfully and marvelously revealed in it… God appeared to work entirely alone, and I saw no room to attribute any part of it of this work to any created arm.” In looking back upon this experience Brainerd concluded, “This was the very season where God saw fittest to begin His glorious work in! And thus He ordained strength out of weakness, by making bare His almighty arm at a time when all hopes and human possibilities most evidently appeared to fail."
I write this account to encourage you about you and your calling by God. Do you relate to David Brainerd? Here is a man who would be least likely to succeed in missionary endeavors who was used by God in such a way as to be considered one of the most inspiring and influential missionaries who ever lived.
What was the secret of His success? That God called him to do something that he could not do that only God could do! Long ago, God asked a young Jewish son of a priest named Jeremiah to do something that he could not do that only God could do. When he heard the call, he refused. I think that we all can understand why. If we are asked to do something that we know that we cannot do,in the natural, it is foolish to accept the assignment, for it soon becomes an embarrassment to everyone.
The job Jeremiah refused was to be a prophet. The work of the prophet is to proclaim the Word of God in application to the present times. The prophet called people to live well, to live rightly for God. A prophet was called to let people know who God is and what He is like, what He says, and what He is doing. A prophet woke people up from their apathy and sleepy complacency so that they could see the great and stunning reality of God and His purposes for us here on this earth. Often times a prophet angered people by awakening them from their safe, comfortable, easy, and secure self centered little worlds. A prophet ripped off disguises, then dragged heartless attitudes and selfish motives out into the open where everyone could see them for what they are. A prophet makes God and His world significant and important, important because He is God, and important God is actively, right now, desiring to use us. A prophet makes it difficult to continue With a sloppy or selfish life.
So young Jeremiah is called and he knows exactly what God is calling him to do; something that he could not do! Yes God had called him. Yes it was important, but Jeremiah refused. It is as if Jeremiah said, "God you obviously do not understand me or know my abilities. I don't do being a prophet. I am prophetically challenged" He reasoned that God did not understand. He was young. He was not qualified. He had not done well in the God courses in school, and he hadn't been around long enough to know what he was talking about. He said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth."
Each one of us are well experienced in pleading inadequacy to God, others, and ourselves in order to avoid living at the level God wants us to live and has called us to. Oh how pathetic our excuses sound! "I am only a youth; I am only a housewife or mother; I am not well educated; I can't speak well; I don't have enough time; I don't have enough training; I am an introvert; I don't have confidence; I have to many character flaws; I'm dumb and unintelligent". Remember what Moses said? "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent" (Exodus 4:10). Do you ever think that? "God is asking to much of me." "He knows that I can't do this or handle this."
The truth is that if we are really honest with ourselves,, we are always inadequate. That is the foundational understanding we need in order to be used by God. Life, in fact, is too much for us. This business of living in awareness and response to God, to live for His glory, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to live in caring attentive love to the people with us, and to do that for 70 to 80 years with joy and perseverance seems to exceed our capacities. We aren't smart enough; we don't have enough energy; we can't concentrate adequately. We are apathetic, fragile, weak, and fickle. Not all the time, to be sure. We have spurts of love, passion, risks of faith, moments of heartfelt caring, and extraordinary courage; but invariably we slip back into laziness, selfishness, or greed. That is why a ruthless honesty before God and ourselves will always leave us shattered by our inadequacy.
There is an enormous gap between what we think we can do and what God calls us to do. As long as God calls me to do only what I think I can do (i.e.control, manipulate, contain, play it within my own self made safety nets) I am fine. In short, as long as God calls me to operate within my own self imposed limitations and abilities all is well. But oh, how often our ideas of what we can do or want to do are small and trivial in comparison to God's idea of what He can do in and through us! God does not call us to do only what we can do, He calls us to do what He can do to us, for us, in us, and through us! God's ideas for us are divine, supernatural, extraordinary, and utterly disproportionate to who we are!
God's call to Jeremiah to be a prophet parallels His call to us each one of us to be the particular person that He has called us to be. The excuses we make are reasonable; often they are logical statements of fact, but they are excuses all the same and are disallowed by our Lord, who says: " "Do not say, 'I am only a youth';for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD....Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down,to destroy and to overthrow,to build and to plant " (Jeremiah 1:9-10).
The three pairs of verbs (pluck up, break down; destroy and overthrow; build and to plant) are all-involving. The life of faith is a life where we do not run or try to escape because it is too much for us; we plunge into it because it is God who commands us and equips us. Augustine said "command what you give, and give what you command." It is not our feelings that determine our level of participation in life, nor our experience that qualifies us for what we will do and be; it is what God decides about us. God does not send us into our callings because we are qualified; He chooses us in order to qualify us for what he wants us to be and do: "I have put my words in your mouth. . . . I have set you this day over nations."
If you read eight verses down the page you will see what God does for Jeremiah. Jeremiah is no longer inadequate. "And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you;but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you" (Jeremiah 1:18-19). Everything that we know about Jeremiah shows that this in fact happened. In a forty-year public ministry through the most confused and chaotic decades of Israel's entire history, Jeremiah was invincible. Inwardly he was in great agony many times, but he never swerved from his course. He was mocked cruelly and persecuted severely, but he never deviated from his position. There was enormous pressure on him to change, to compromise, to quit and to hide. He never did it.
How did Jeremiah make the transition from the weak, waffling, wavering, self disqualifying, excuse-making "Ah, LORD, I am only a youth" to the "fortified city, iron pillar, bronze walled" career of accepting the assignment as prophet? God did it! God did a work to him, for him, in him, and through him. God called him to do a work that only God could do and God did it! If God did it for Jeremiah, He will do it for you.
Remember David Brainerd? David Brainerd prayed “Oh, that I might be a flaming fire in the service of the Lord. Here I am I Lord, send me; send me to the ends of the earth ... send me from all that ¬is called earthly comfort; send me even to death itself if it be but in Your service and to promote Your Kingdom" Oh how God answered that prayer!
David Brainerd's and Jeremiah's lives are a vivid, powerful testimony to the truth that God can and does use weak, sick, moody, pain-wrecked, discouraged, beat-down, lonely, struggling saints, who cry to him day and night to empower them to be able to do supernatural things that only God can do. When you understand this extraordinary God and the extraordinary work that He desires to do through your working you can begin praying a prayer like this: “Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am". This is how I pray each and every day of my life. This is a prayer that any one of you who feel passionless, loveless, weak, inadequate, can pray boldly without fear of presumption.
The wording of the prayer contains a disclaimer: "I am not great. But you, Lord, are very great. So in your astonishing sovereignty and glorious omnipotence you can flood me with love, passion, and power and let my little life make a difference far beyond all my little powers. GOD WILL DO FOR YOU WHAT ONLY GOD CAN DO. For His glory and your joy. AMEN!
Pastor Bill
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