Running With The Horses

Jeremiah the prophet, believed he had heard the Lord giving him a direct command:

"Before I formed you...I knew you
Before you were born, I consecrated you.
I appointed you a prophet to the nations..." (Jer. 1:4)

But although he spoke the words of the Lord with conviction, using imaginative devices and illustrations, he was hated by the people and despised. He complained to the Lord that things weren't going well and he was tired, but the Lord's response was as follows:

"If you have raced with men on foot, and
they have wearied you, how will you
compete with horses? And if in a safe land
you fall down, how will you do in the jungle
of the Jordan?" (Jeremiah 12:5)

Not very encouraging, was it? Almost like saying, "Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!"
Someone has defined happiness as "a state of going somewhere, one‑directionally, without regret, or reservation." This was Jeremiah, and the pioneers of the early faith.

The zeal of the early church pioneers was incredible. John Wesley in his diary wrote: "Leisure and I have taken leave of one another." Christian Newcomer made more than fifty trips on horseback across the Appalachian Mts., his last after he had passed his 80th birthday. Many of the early pioneers of the Church literally lived on horseback. They were very ordinary people who above all things wished to be faithful. They were footmen, who through the years had learned to run with even the horses!

The Church can use more such persons today, who run not only with their fellow brothers and sisters, but have been conditioned to run against the devil himself.

God made an oyster to be safe in its shell. It was destined to be safe, but doomed to forever being an oyster. God took human‑kind, and placed all the protective bone on the inside, exposing raw nerves to a cruel world. We were not destined for safety, but destined to subdue the world, and bring all mankind to the love of God.

Some of us are still looking for an oyster shell. Above all else, we want to be comfortable. No so, Jeremiah and the great pioneers. They were conditioned by the grace of God to run with the horses, taking the jibes and taunts of life. They got the victory. May we also run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.