Do you know how fast God can run?

I'm reading through Jeremiah. It's been about ten years since I read through and so it's time again. What a blessing God's word is! I am overfilled and overwhelmed with just the first 11 verses in chapter 1.

And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Jeremiah, what do you see?" And I said, “I see an almond branch." 12Then the LORD said to me, "You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it."

I enjoy the natural history aspects of scripture. As I read verse 11, I stopped to learn more. The first chapter deals with Jeremiah's call to his fifty-year-plus long prophetic office, almost all of which was difficult, depressing, and discouraging.

The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, opening with the famous line-

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.

This is an example of foreordination, where God does not merely react to events on earth, but ordains them from before He created the world. He not only knows the end from the beginning, He authored it, ordained, it and performs it.

I was curious about the linkage of the almond tree with God's word. What it is about an almond tree that I need to know so I can understand this verse better? How is an almond tree like God's word? Why is an almond branch being used as a promise from the LORD that He will perform His word?

Spurgeon helped here, preaching an entire sermon on just verse 11. (sermon #2678, THE LESSON OF THE ALMOND TREE)  His sermon is ripe with meaning, insight, and background. It was extremely illuminating.

The almond tree is the first tree to awaken in the winter, hastening to put out leaves and then ripe fruit before any other tree. Spurgeon said that the Hebrew word for almond is wakeful.

Observe, first, that THE ALMOND IS A WAKEFUL TREE. The Hebrew word which is rendered "almond” comes from a root signifying to be wakeful, so this passage might be read thus, "I see the wakeful rod."

Now, to my question about the linking of the almond tree with God's word. In the section of his sermon explaining the almond tree with God being quick in performing His promises, Spurgeon said in part,

"Oh, but!" says one, "There are often long delays before peace is enjoyed." Then it is because you make them, for God does not. "But sometimes we have to wait," says one. Yes, yes; I know all about that waiting. Do you remember, in the parable of the prodigal son, where he waited? Why, with the harlots and others with whom he wasted his substance in riotous living, or with the swine, when he was feeding them with the husks with which he would gladly have filled his own empty belly. That is where he waited; but when did he end his waiting? When he said, "I will arise and go to my father." He did not wait any longer, for we read, "And he arose, and came to his father;" and then it is written, "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,

and”—"and"—"and"—"and stood still, and waited for him to come"? No, no; I know that God waits to be gracious; but, according to the teaching of that parable, "when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran." Do you know how fast God can run?

But again I ask, can you tell me how fast God can run? No, you do not know, you cannot tell; but you do know that He is all on fire with love to embrace a poor penitent sinner, and He speeds towards him at an amazing rate. ... Swift as the lightning’s flash is the glance of divine compassion that brings life to a penitent soul.

I've always been slain and humbled by this fact. In my own conversion, I was in a dire spiritual circumstance, at very rock bottom. My next stop was the pit to be lost forever. At the end of myself, the only place I had to look was up. I was 42 years old, having pursued sin all my life. Yet when I cried out to Him for "help", He helped me immediately. He didn't say, 'Wait, you decades-old sinner." He did not say "Let me think about it." I pled for my soul and He answered immediately. He ran!

He is a good God, a just God. I would have deserved my place alongside other sinners in hell. Yet he hastened to fulfill my appeal. Do I know how fast God can run? Yes, I do. I am eternally grateful.