My father often quoted this verse to me
when he feared I was ready to give up in some endeavor. Then one day when I was
in college, Dad gave me a book entitled Run
with the Horses by Eugene Peterson. He thought it to be one of the best
books he had read. I believe it is certainly one of Peterson’s best. At the end
of the first chapter he writes,
Vietzslav Gardavsky, the Czech
philosopher and martyr who died in 1978, took Jeremiah as his “image of man” in
his campaign against a society that carefully planned every detail of material
existence but eliminated mystery and miracle, and squeezed all freedom from
life. The terrible threat against life, he said in his book God Is Not Yet Dead, is not death, nor
pain, nor any variation on the disasters that we so obsessively try to protect
ourselves against with our social systems and personal stratagems. The terrible
threat is “that we might die earlier than we really do die, before death has
become a natural necessity. The real horror lies in just such a premature death, a death after which we
go on living for many years.”
There is a memorable passage concerning
Jeremiah’s life when, worn down by the opposition and absorbed in self-pity, he
was about to capitulate to just such a premature death. He was ready to abandon
his unique calling in God and settle for being a Jerusalem statistic. At that
critical moment he heard the reprimand,: “If you have raced with men on foot, and
they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land
you fall down, how will you do in the jungle of the Jordan?” (Jer 12:5). Biochemist
Erwin Chargaff updates the questions: “What do you want to achieve? Greater
riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your
neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are
you seeking greater wisdom, deeper piety?”
Life is difficult, Jeremiah. Are you
going to quit at the first wave of opposition? Are you going to retreat when
you find that there is more to life than finding three meals a day and a dry
place to sleep at night? Are you going to run home the minute you find that the
mass of men and women are more interested in keeping their feet warm than in
living at risk to the glory of God? Are you going to live cautiously or
courageously? I called you to live at your best, to pursue righteousness, to
sustain a drive toward excellence. It is easier, I know, to be neurotic. It is
easier to be parasitic. It is easier to relax in the embracing arms of The
Average. Easier, but not better. Easier, but not more significant. Easier, but
not more fulfilling. I called you to a life of purpose far beyond what you
think yourself capable of living and promised you adequate strength to fulfill
your destiny. Now at the first sign of difficulty you are ready to quit. If you
are fatiqued by this run-of-the-mill crowd of apathetic mediocrities, what will
you do when the real race starts, the race with the swift and determined horses
of excellence? What is it you really want, Jeremiah, do you want to shuffle
along with this crowd, or run with the horses?
It is understandable that there are
retreats from excellence, veerings away from risk, withdrawals from faith. It
is easier to define oneself minimally (“a featherless biped”) and live securely
within that definition than to be defined maximally (“little less than God”)
and live adventurously in that reality. It is unlikely, I think, that Jeremiah
was spontaneous or quick in his reply to God’s question. The ecstatic ideals
for a new life had been splattered with the world’s cynicism. The euphoric
impetus of youthful enthusiasm no longer carried him. He weighed the options.
He counted the cost. He tossed and turned in hesitation. The response when it
came was not verbal but biographical. His life became his answer, “I’ll run
with the horses.”
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