JEREMIAH 1:4-10

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”

7 But the Lord said to me,

“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
declares the Lord.”

9 Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,

“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
10 See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”

When I was growing up I saw a picture in a Sunday School book that I still remember to this day.  The picture showed a boy hiding under a table.  He was hiding under the table because he had done something wrong and he was trying to hide from God.  The message of course was that you can’t hide from God. 

We learned that you can’t hide from God because God is like Santa Claus.  That’s because God sees you when you’re sleeping.  God knows when you’re awake.  God knows when you’ve been bad or good.  So be good for goodness sake.  

You can’t hide from the God who sees everything you do and who does hold you accountable for your actions. Just ask the atheist who was hiking through the woods one day when he came face to face with a big old grizzly bear.  Without thinking the atheist hollered “O dear God!” Suddenly everything came to a complete stop.  The birds stopped chirping.  The river stopped gurgling and the bear stopped growling.  The atheist then saw a bright light and a voice from the heavens said, “My son, if you believe I can and will help you.” The atheist looked up and shook his head.  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it would be hypocritical of me after all these years to say that say that I believe and ask you to help me.  Here’s an idea though. Maybe you could make the bear a Christian.”  “Very well,” the voice said.  Suddenly time started moving again. The birds started chirping again.  The river started gurgling again.  And the bear?  The bear miraculously dropped to its knees, brought both of its paws together, bowed its head and prayed, “Lord, I want to thank you for this food that I am about to receive.  Amen.”

It’s true that God sees your faults, your flaws and your faux pas but here’s something that people don’t always remember.  God also sees the good in you. Jesus look at Jeremiah.  When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet he couldn’t believe it.

Listen again to what Jeremiah said when he heard God’s call.  “Ah, Lord God!” he said. “Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”   As far as Jeremiah was concerned he wasn’t old enough.  He wasn’t experienced enough.  He wasn’t wise enough to be a prophet.  God saw something in Jeremiah though that Jeremiah didn’t see in himself.   That’s why God said to Jeremiah,

“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command you, you shall speak.

“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down…”

Why did God call Jeremiah to be a prophet? God called Jeremiah to be a prophet because God saw something in Jeremiah that Jeremiah didn’t see in himself.  God saw Jeremiah’s potential and God saw that potential because God was the One who put it there in the first place.

So, the call of Jeremiah is really all about God and something called your TMP Quotient.  TMP stands for “Tapping My Potential.”   Jeremiah wasn’t tapping his potential.  How about you?  Are you tapping your potential.  We’ll get to that in a minute. Jeremiah wasn’t tapping his potential because he lived in a society that looked down on people who were young.  Today it’s almost a sin to grow old.  Back then it was almost a sin to be young.  If you were young it meant that you were naïve and stupid.  On the other hand, if you were old it mean that you were experienced and wise.  

So it shouldn’t come as a big surprised that Jeremiah wasn’t tapping his potential.  Sometimes the people around you say and do things that keep you from tapping your potential.  Sometimes their attitudes and actions are motivated by fear. That’s what John F. Kennedy had to deal when he ran for president back in 1960.  People said “We’ve never had a Catholic president before and we can’t have one now.  It will ruin the country.” 

Sometimes it’s the fear around you that keeps you from tapping your potential.  Sometimes it’s ignorance.  That’s what happened to Fred Astaire when he went for his first screen test.  After watching him perform the talent agent wrote: “Can’t act.  Can’t sing.  Can dance a little.”

Sometimes it’s the fear around you that keeps you from tapping your potential. Sometimes it’s ignorance and sometimes it’s jealousy.  I experienced that many years ago when I moved to Maine and began my ministry there.   It was a big and stressful move for me.  Now people deal with stress in different ways.  I deal with it by eating.  So, I ate and ate and ate. I didn’t realize how much I had been eating until I saw a picture that someone took at an Easter Sunrise service several months later.  When I saw myself in that picture I was horrified.  I immediately decided that I needed to loose all that weight.  So, I began to exercise.  I started eating less fattening foods.  Eventually I lost about 35 pounds.  I felt great, but then something strange happened.  People began to tell me that I’d lost too much weight.  They told me that that I looked sick and unhealthy.  I couldn’t figure it out because I felt great.  Then one day I went to visit an 85 year old retired school teacher.  When I sat down in Eva Alley’s living room she looked at me and said, “You look wonderful since you lost all that weight!”  I was shocked and told her how everyone was telling me that I looked sick and unhealthy.  “Don’t listen to them,” she said.  “I lost 50 pounds many years ago and it was the best thing I ever did.”  That’s when I understood what was really going on.  I realized that it was a lot easier for people to say “You’re too think” than it was for them to say, “You know what I’m too fat.  I need to loose some weight myself.”

Jeremiah accepted the limitations that society put on him and because of that it meant that he wasn’t meeting his TMP Quotient. How about you?  Are you meeting your TMP Quotient?   Sometimes it isn’t easy.

That’s why faith is so important when it comes to tapping your potential. It’s important because when your faith is strong it deepens your relationship with the God created you and who sees your potential.             When your faith is strong…

            The first thing God does is help you discern your potential.                                                            The second thing God does is help you develop your potential.                                                The third thing God does is help you deploy your potential.

That last one is especially important.  That’s because all the potential in the world won’t mean very much if you don’t deploy it the right way.  When you’re faith is strong God will help you deploy your potential in a way that brings healing and hope and happiness into the world and the lives of the people around you. God will help you deploy your potential in a way that makes you a blessing to others.   So, when it comes to potential you’re no different than a rose.  At least that’s the way a pastor and Christian author by the name of Dale Galloway sees it.  He put it this way.  According to him, “A rose only blesses others when it opens up and blooms.  It’s greatest tragedy is to stay in a tight-closed bud, never fulfilling its potential.”

The last thing God wants is for you to end up making the same mistake that James W. Marshall made back in 1849.  Who was James W. Marshall you ask?  James W. Marshall is the guy who discovered gold in Sutter’s Creek out in California.  His discovery started the great Gold Rush of 1849.  People from all over the country and the world for that matter flocked to California to seek their fortune.  Some found it and others didn’t.  One of the miners who didn’t was a man who’s body was found forty years later in an abandoned mine shaft.  That unfortunate miner was James W. Marshall.    He died alone and penniless because he never took the time to stake his own claim.

The God who saw the Jeremiah’s untapped potential will always be there to help you discern, develop and deploy your potential.  God will always be there to help you realize your TMP Quotient.  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

August 22, 2010