How Will You Compete With Horses?

This morning’s rising was...strange. I woke up aware my body was uncomfortably warm and peeled back the covers. The early-ness of 2:20 am had me negotiating a return to sleep, even though I already had a lot running through my head, and I had a desire to put thoughts to paper to see where God would take me this morning.

After an Encountering Peace meditation – and still being awake – I opened my Bible to see what He wanted to say. I opened to a divot in the side of the pages and found Jeremiah 12. I started reading “Jeremiah’s Complaint”: “You are always righteous LORD when I bring a case before You. Yet I would speak with You about Your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?...How long will the land lie parched…?”

These words look familiar as I remember David and Job asked similar questions “Why…?”, “How long O LORD…?” As I continue to the header “God’s Answer”, I am surprised by what I’m reading here. When God answers David, He shows him the plight of those who do not follow God being overthrown in their wickedness in the end, even though for a season they had prospered (Psalm 37 and 73). And in Job 38, God’s answer was, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (starting in verse 4 and going on for 4 chapters!) for all the things God has done that we humans have no ability to perform: “Does the hawk fly by your wisdom?” (39:26) “Can you bring out leviathan?” (41:1). But there is a different answer to Jeremiah that resonates with conversations I have had with God in the past.

“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?” That seems like such a random question! And He’s not done: “If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” My mind is flooded by a bunch of verses, cross-referencing the rabbit trails my head is running through on this well-worn path! Elijah running ahead of Ahab’s chariot, “competing with horses”, and beating him back to Jezreel (1 Kings 18:46), Isaiah’s call to “rest”, “in quietness and trust” instead of “running off on your own horses” (Isaiah 30:15-16), God’s call to “strengthen feeble knees” (Hebrews 12:12), to “be not weary in well doing” (Galatians 6), and settling in 2 Peter 1 “adding to your faith, virtue and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance…” (1:5-7). This is another reminder that just as God warns us that “where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18), we also need to engage in spiritual “strength training”, adding to the disciplines from previous seasons to face upcoming ones!

In Isaiah 40:29 it says God “gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength”. We can clearly see that adversity and challenges are key components of building resilience, character and spiritual strength!

Just like at the gym, we add repetitions and weight to build endurance and strength, the ever-increasing challenges we face with God’s help, build perseverance, faith muscles and the ability to take on bigger challenges successfully! If we stay stuck in the “woe is me!” mentality, it saps our strength and we won’t have the endurance to “compete with horses” or manage the “thickets” in life.

You and God is a majority! Psalm 18:29 shows us, “For by You I can run through a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.” This is not a new encouragement, but a re-newed one!

I remember a particularly discouraging season in my life where I felt like I was in survival mode most of the time. I felt overwhelmed, often tearful, and felt like a spiritual weakling, even though I had gone to conferences, prayed the prayers, sung the songs and knew I knew better. One day I was crying out to God telling Him I felt like I was drowning. He pointed out to me that I was stronger than I felt in the moment and I needed to realize we’d already come through tougher things than this. I needed to walk in the growth I’d already attained. HOW He said it was direct and to the point: “You’re laying on your back in the kiddie pool,… stand up!” I got the message loud and clear. You’re bigger than this. You’re stronger than this. Don’t accept the enemy’s lies that you “can’t take it anymore”! Rest in Me, quiet your soul, trust Me,… “Be still and know that I Am God” (Psalm 46:10).

So I take this encouragement today to “Walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), not to be moved by appearances of the ungodly having no problems, or overwhelmed by footraces with men when God has already equipped me to “compete with horses” – and win! - “strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory, in every kind of endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11)! Thank You God – I will “keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of my faith...so I can run with endurance the race set before me!” (Hebrews 12:1-2) I will remember, “By my God I can leap over a wall” better than any horse!