Warm-up: Jeremiah 12:1-6

I read somewhere that Carl Lewis was once challenged to a horse race. It's been done before: Jim Thorpe, "The World's Greatest Athlete," actually out sprinted a thoroughbred--for about fifty yards.

I guess Lewis turned the offer down. I've heard nothing of the outcome. It was enough for him, I suppose, to have competed with men.

I thought of something God said to Jeremiah: "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?" (Jeremiah 12:5).

There's a significant background to this text: Judah's good king Josiah, in a rare display of stupidity, tried to take on Pharoah Necho of Egypt and his entire army and got himself killed in the process. That put Judah back into the hands of the old guard--the idolatrous prophets and priests whom Jeremiah had inveighed against for several years. They quietly put out a contract on the prophet's life.

At first Jeremiah knew nothing of the conspiracy since he was preaching in the little villages of Judah, but he soon learned of it and fled to Anathoth, his home town, where he hoped to find sanctuary. But it wasn't to be. Even there Jeremiah wasn't safe. His neighbors conspired to kill him.

The prophet began to cry the blues: "If you're just, O Lord, why do the wicked prosper?" (Jeremiah 12:1). I know the tune. I've sung it myself before. The Lord's answer was an unexpected, gentle rebuke: "If you can't run with men, Jeremiah, how can you run with horses? If you can't thrive in the relative safety of the city, what will you do in the jungles of the Jordan, where predacious wild animals roam.

It occurred to me as I read those words that God and I often work at odds with one another: I want my detractors to lighten up, but God wants me to toughen up. "If you can't deal with what's coming down the pike today," he seems to be saying, "how can you handle the heavy traffic tomorrow?" It seems that God is busy preparing all of us for greater things. He does so by giving us the opportunity to trust him in our present difficulties so that our faith will grow stronger and more muscular for the greater difficulties to come. His presence in our trouble today gives us strength for the double-trouble tomorrow.

It's good to know, however, that while God is preparing us for greater things tomorrow he won't push us over the edge today. He won't challenge us to race against horses until he's taught us to run with men. He won't send us into the "thickets of the Jordan" to grapple with grizzlies until he's shown us his power on less arduous and hazardous occasions.

He brings us along slowly, measuring each trial against our current measure of faith, pushing us, but never pushing us beyond our ability to believe--never giving us more than we can bear, but often giving us more than we think we can bear. He proves himself strong in our trouble. That's how we learn that his grace is sufficient for any ordeal.

And so I say to myself: "Not to worry." This trial today--whatever it is--is not overwhelming. God's grace is sufficient for me. I can take comfort in his strengthenings.

Furthermore, this trial is given to me today that I may know more of God's grace tomorrow. If greater troubles rise and o'ershadow me he will give a greater grace. As the day, so his strength shall be.

And though the future brings some heavier cross
I need not cloud the present with my fears;
I know the grace that is enough today
Will be sufficient still through all the years

--Annie Johnson Flint