It was four lines. I want to start with that so nobody thinks this was a speech.
Four lines at the harvest service, about the fields and about thanks, and I had them by heart eleven days before and I had said them out loud in the barn to Bucky approximately a hundred times, which is a thing he tolerated with total indifference.
The problem is not the four lines. Anybody who thinks the problem is the four lines has never done it.
The problem is that there are about ninety people in that building and I know every single one of them and every single one of them has known me since I was born. That is worse and not better. A stranger does not know how you usually are. Mrs. Ames has watched me since I was two.
So there is a version of me in ninety heads, and standing up puts a new version in front of all of them at once, and whatever I do in those four lines goes into ninety heads and stays there.
I was ill about it on the Saturday. Genuinely, actually ill, in the way a person is ill about a thing that is not going to hurt them.
Dad did not say I would be fine. That is the thing I want to write down. He is not a man who says a lot and what he said was that he had read at that service four times in his life and had not enjoyed any of them, and that Mr. Ames had been reading there for thirty years and still holds the paper with two hands so nobody sees the one.
I got up. I read them. My voice did a thing in line two that I did not know voices did, and I finished, and I sat down, and I do not remember sitting down.
Afterward eleven separate people told me I did well, and I did not believe one of them, and I have since worked out that this is also completely normal and that they meant it.
He tries the age argument and it is answered
God gives a young man a job and the young man raises the most reasonable objection available.
Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. (Jeremiah 1:6, 7)
Notice that God does not tell him he is older than he thinks. He does not say the job is smaller than it looks and He does not tell him he will be fine.
He says say not, which is an instruction about a sentence rather than about a feeling, and then He redirects the whole business onto the sending and the speaking, which are both things somebody else is doing.
You are being answered with a redirection rather than a compliment, and Jeremiah 1:7 moves the subject off the boy and onto the one sending him. It is the Holy Spirit who makes that read as being carried instead of as being dismissed.
And then comes the sentence that is the actual answer and it is not about ability at all: Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
Their faces. Not their questions. Not the job. God names the exact thing that is frightening a young man standing up in front of people, and He names it correctly.
You have been understood down to the specific part that is frightening. Jeremiah 1:8 says faces, which is precisely what a person sees from the front of a room, and His Spirit is what makes being understood that exactly a comfort in a body.
What He does instead of encouragement
The next verse describes something happening rather than something being said.
Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. (Jeremiah 1:9)
He does not hand him a technique. He does not give him three tips about breathing. There is a touch and there is a statement about what has been put where.
Which means the young man's mouth was equipped before he had done anything with it, and the equipping is described as finished rather than as forthcoming.
You are speaking out of something already put there rather than out of your own supply. Jeremiah 1:9 uses the past tense about the putting, and the Spirit of God is what makes an already rather than a soon the difference on a Saturday.
And there is a line before all of it that reframes the whole chapter: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee.
You have been known since before there was anything of you to know. Jeremiah 1:5 puts the knowing before the forming, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves that from a prophet's call into a boy holding a piece of paper at the front of a room.
So here is what I have got out of four lines and a voice that did something in line two.
You are not disqualified by the argument you are making about yourself, and Jeremiah 1:7 says say not, I am a child, rather than saying you are not one. The Holy Spirit is what keeps that from being a dodge and makes it the reason a boy gets up.
He did not say I would be fine. I keep coming back to that. He said he had read four times and had not enjoyed any of them, and that Mr. Ames still holds the paper with two hands after thirty years, and both of those helped more than being told I would be fine could ever have helped.
You have been given the thing before the moment rather than during it. Jeremiah 1:9 says I have put my words in thy mouth in the past tense, and His Spirit is what makes already something a person can stand on at the front of a room.
And this is for whoever is reading it out, who has their own room full of people who have known them since they were small. You were not being asked to be somebody else up there. Jeremiah 1:5 says God knew the person before there was anything of them to know, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes being known that early make being seen bearable.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over your own argument about yourself is genuinely yours, delegated and never invented. God answered a young man's age objection by telling him not to say it, so speak to the argument: you have standing to address it because He is the one who answered it first. An ambassador carries the King's word and never his own policy, so say what God has said and leave the outcome to Him. Every line below is Jeremiah 1:7 and Jeremiah 1:9 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not your volume, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Argument that I am too young for this, you are not new and you did not work then either. The Word of God says say not, I am a child, and then moves the whole subject onto the one doing the sending.
- Ninety faces I have to stand in front of, you are finished in the name of Jesus. I am sent and I am equipped, because Jeremiah 1:8 says be not afraid of their faces and names the exact thing rather than a general one.
- Father, You have never once handed me a technique instead of Yourself. I receive that today, and I thank You that Your word says You have put Your words in my mouth already, in the past tense, before I open it.
Jeremiah 1:7
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