Jeremiah 12

At the beginning of this chapter, it looks like Jeremiah’s ready to throw in the towel. He’s taken a good look around and seen that he is somewhat (actually very much!) at odds with popular culture. His message is falling on deaf ears. His mission is going to fail. And he’s pretty discouraged by it.

In response, God says, “If you get tired while racing against people, how can you race against horses? If you stumble in a country that is safe, what will you do in the thick thornbushes along the Jordan River?” (vs 5)

This verse was the title inspiration for Eugene Peterson’s book, Run With the Horses: The Quest for Life at its Best. I hope you will indulge me as I share a quote with you from his opening chapter. It is so insightful and eloquent that, if you are not yet a lover of Peterson’s writing, I hope this will make you a convert!

The puzzle is why so many people live so badly. Not so wickedly, but so inanely. Not so cruelly, but so stupidly. There is little to admire and less to imitate in the people who are prominent in our culture. We have celebrities but not saints. Famous entertainers amuse a nation of bored insomniacs. Infamous criminals act out the aggressions of timid conformists. Petulant and spoiled athletes play games vicariously for lazy and apathetic spectators. People, aimless and bored, amuse themselves with trivia and trash. Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of righteousness gets headlines… No other culture has been as eager to reward either nonsense or wickedness.

If, on the other hand, we look around for what it means to be a mature, whole, blessed person, we don’t find much. These people are around, maybe as many of them as ever, but they aren’t easy to pick out. No journalist interviews them. No talk show features them. They are not admired. They are not looked up to. They do not set trends. There is no cash value in them. No Oscars are given for integrity. At year’s end no one compiles a list of the ten best-lived lives.

It doesn’t take long to discover that, everywhere you turn, the culture tries to drag you down and suck you under. Biblical values are under assault from nearly every possible avenue—movies, television, print media, leisure activities, educational institutions, and even (in some cases) the church!

But God wanted Jeremiah (and us) to know that we don’t have to become assimilated into the culture around us. Instead of spending our energies racing with men, we can choose to run with the horses:

Something very different takes place in the life of faith: each person discovers all the elements of a unique and original adventure… The Bible makes it clear that every time there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God’s creative genius is endless. He never, fatigued and unable to maintain the rigors of creativity, resorts to mass-producing copies. Each life is a fresh canvas on which he uses lines and colors, shades and lights, textures and proportions that he has never used before.

We see what is possible: anyone and everyone is able to live a zestful life that spills out of the stereotyped containers that a sin-inhibited society provides. Such lives fuse spontaneity and purpose and green the desiccated landscape with meaning.

God doesn’t want you to become a nameless, faceless zombie in a sea of other nameless, faceless zombies. He made you to be unique—a one-of-a-kind expression of His image. Nobody else has ever been created with your unique set of gifts, talents, and abilities. God gave them to you and made you to be on the earth right now, at this moment.

So, you can soak up the culture and try to be the next Cardi B, Lady Gaga, or Gordon Ramsey. Or you can embrace the reality that God has so much more for you. He didn’t plan for you to become a carbon copy of someone else. He doesn’t want you to race against men; He wants you to run with the horses.

No matter what your dream is for your own life, God’s dream for you is bigger.

He has so much more for you!