Caleb Said He Was Just a Kid, and Jeremiah Said It First

Yesterday at the Smith's by the freeway I handed Caleb the list and told him the turkey was his. A pound of the oven-roasted, sliced medium, at the deli counter, with the man in the hairnet standing right there. Caleb looked at the counter and then at me and said, "I can't. I'm just a kid. They'll want to talk to you." He's eleven, he orders his own nachos at the ball field snack stand without blinking, and he knew exactly what he was doing with the word "kid." I told him I'd stand right there, he said "Turkey" to the man, and we went home with a pound of it.

Next week (October 19 to 25) the Come, Follow Me lesson is Jeremiah 1-3, 7, 16-18 and 20, and its title comes from the fifth verse of the first chapter, "Before I Formed Thee in the Belly I Knew Thee." I'm staying in chapter 1 for this post, because that's where somebody shows up and refuses a job because of his size.

What does the Lord say back when Jeremiah says he's a child?

The Lord speaks first. In verse 5 he tells Jeremiah he knew him before he was formed and ordained him a prophet unto the nations. Jeremiah's answer comes right after, and then the Lord's.

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

Look at what's missing from the second verse, because the Lord never says "you're not a child" and doesn't argue with it anywhere. He tells Jeremiah to quit offering it as the reason, and then he moves on to who's going. Verse 8 says "Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord." In verse 9 the Lord puts forth his hand, touches Jeremiah's mouth and says he has put his words there.

So the objection gets no debate. What Jeremiah gets is company and a hand on the mouth, and I read that a few times over before it sank in that nobody promises him he'll feel any older when he goes.

The chapter comes back to it at the end, after the almond rod and the seething pot. The Lord tells him to gird up his loins and arise and speak all that he's commanded, and not to be dismayed at their faces. Then in verse 18 he says he has made Jeremiah a defenced city, an iron pillar and brasen walls against the whole land, and verse 19 says "they shall not prevail against thee." That's a lot more than company. It's the same promise said a second time, before anything has gone well, and I tend to save my reassurance for after the hard part is over, when it costs me nothing and does a child no good.

Wyatt and the lunch count

My first year teaching third grade I had a boy named Wyatt who was the smallest in the class by a good two inches. Every morning someone carried the lunch count down the hall to the office, a clipboard with a yellow sheet on it, and in September Wyatt told me he couldn't. The office lady talked fast, he said, and he was too little to say "thirteen hot, six sack" to a grown-up who was already on the phone.

I walked him as far as the drinking fountain, which I did for about two weeks, and then one morning a mother was at my door asking about a missing coat, and I looked up and Wyatt was looking at me, and I waved at the hall and he went. He came back with a smiley-face sticker the office lady had given him, and he held it out like something he'd been handed against his will. "I'm eight," he said.

He said he was too little again in November about the coat hooks and again in March about the class play, and each time he took the clipboard down the hall anyway, so that by spring I'd stopped walking to the fountain and nobody had made an announcement about it.

Is "I can't" ever just true?

Sometimes, yes, and when Caleb can't reach the top shelf the right answer is a stool or my arm. Ben says "can't" at the bottom of the basement stairs most days and what he means is "give me your hand," so I give it.

I don't have a sentence for him about courage.

What I do now, when one of them says it, is ask which part. Which part can't you do? Most of the time the answer shrinks into something I can actually work with, like "what if he asks me something and I say it wrong." That's a real fear and a small one, and once it's the small one I can say I'll be right here and not be lying.

I've stopped saying "yes you can," because it starts a contest, and Lily and I have had that one more than once. I wrote about her two Primary lines back in September in Lily Has Two Lines and Says She Can't.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Jeremiah say he was a child?

The chapter doesn't tell us his age, so I wouldn't guess at one. You'll hear that he must have been young, and he may have been, but the verse only has him saying it and the Lord answering something else.

Does Jeremiah 1:5 mean every child is called as a prophet?

No. It's the Lord speaking to Jeremiah about Jeremiah, and "a prophet unto the nations" is the calling named in the verse. I'd keep it there. What carries over to my kitchen is smaller and I think safer, which is that the one who sends is the one who goes along.

Should I make my kid do the scary thing anyway?

Depends on the thing. If it's an errand or a chore, yes, and I stand close enough to be seen. If it's something he's afraid of for a good reason, like a kid who has been laughed at before, I'd wait and find out more before I push. I decide which of those it is before I answer, because kids can tell when I'm making it up as I go.

What is the Come, Follow Me reading for next week?

October 19 to 25, 2026, Jeremiah 1-3, 7, 16-18 and 20. I've only read chapter 1 closely so far, so that's all I can speak to.

What I still don't like about this passage is where it sends him. The Lord's answer to a frightened Jeremiah is to go, and verse 10 says what he's going to do, which is "to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant." Four of those six verbs are demolition. In chapter 20 Pashur puts him in the stocks at the high gate and lets him out the next morning, and after that Jeremiah says to the Lord, "thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived" (Jeremiah 20:7). So the chapter 1 promise, company and words and walls that won't fall, held, and he was still mocked daily. I'd like one calling story where the frightened one gets an easier job, and this isn't it.

with love, Melissa