If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe place you have fallen down, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan? – Jeremiah 12:5 Excerpt from book – Run With the Horses A book by Eugene Peterson about Jeremiah living excellent. 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 apathetic spectators. People aimless and bored, amuse themselves with trivia and trash. Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of righteousness gets headlines. I hope to stir up a dissatisfaction with anything less than our best. I want to provide fresh documentation that the only way that any one of us can live at our best is in a life of radical faith in God. Every one of us needs to be stretched to live at our best, awakened out of dull moral habits, shaken out of petty and trivial busy- work. Life is difficult. 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 live cautiously or courageously? God has called you to live at your best, to pursue righteousness, to sustain a drive toward excellence. It is easier, I know, 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. If you are fatigued 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? Do you want to shuffle with this crowd, or run with the swift; the horses? It is understandable that there are retreats from excellence, veering away from risk, withdrawals from faith. It is easier to define oneself minimally and live securely within the definition than to be defined maximally and live adventurously in that reality. It is unlikely, I think, that Jeremiah was spontaneous or quick to reply to God’s question. That ecstatic ideals for a new life had 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 live became his answer, “I’ll run with the horses.” WHAT SAYS YOU? Intentionally, today…and every day…Run with the horses
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 10:00:23 +0000
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