Nothing

             “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”  (Jeremiah 32:17)

The context for this verse is Jeremiah’s purchase of a field. He gave the deeds to Baruch, son of Neriah, his scriber, who put it in a clay pot to preserve it. After this, Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, and some of its best and brightest are taken to Babylon. Israel was left in ruins, and would remain so for 70 years. Jeremiah had been predicting the fate of Israel. I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable about Israel’s history.  I know that Babylonian exiles returned to Israel, but whether Jeremiah or Baruch did is another matter.

Regardless, what is evident from the context is that Jeremiah made arrangements for two steps in the future. He knew hard times were coming, but they would end, and he prepared with the end of the hard times in mind (at God’s direction.) The hard times were an apocalypse for the nation of Israel, but it would end, and Israel would once more be Israel. It is with this in mind that Jeremiah praised God.

It’s often suggested that we should live in the present, but Jeremiah was living two steps into the future and praising God because God could and would get someone to that second step. He was investing in the future, and he trusted God to arrange it. We need to be careful before we follow this pattern. Jeremiah was told that Israel would return. He didn’t make the purchase to manipulate God into doing something. He made the purchase believing what God had told him. And he made it without expecting to see any good come of it for himself.

I’m not suggesting any drama here, but when facing changes or challenges, I wonder if we should start looking two steps ahead and investing our faith in God, for whom nothing is too hard.