If You Have Run With the Footman…

 

5 “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,

Then how can you contend with horses?

And if in the land of peace,

In which you trusted, they wearied you,

Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?—Jeremiah 12:5

I love and hate this verse all at the same time.  Like Jeremiah, I can feel weary from “running with the footmen”, but therein lies God’s encouragement to Jeremiah and to me!  I HAVE run with the footmen!  I am tired, but I made it through and I didn’t give up!  God is acknowledging Jeremiah’s success and as I read His words to Jeremiah, mine also. The part I hate about this verse is obvious.  God is telling Jeremiah that there will be tougher challenges ahead.  Sigh.  I don’t want tougher challenges. I don’t want to go into the floodplain of the Jordan. 

Beloved…the Bible tells us that in this world we will have tribulation.  Trials and troubles come to all in this world…saved or unsaved.  As believers, the trials we face have meaning and purpose.  As a bonus they also toughen us up for what is to come.  Our “footmen” prepare us for the “horses” that are coming. God never gives us more than we can handle.  Whatever we face in this life, we face in Him and with Him. He goes before us.  He never leaves us.  I look back at my life and what I see is God’s lovingkindness in preparing me back then for the very things that I face today.  HE IS FAITHFUL. Trials are inevitable but in Christ, we are invincible.

Fear not, for I am with you;

Be not dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you,

Yes, I will help you,

I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.—Isaiah 41:10

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

36 As it is written:

"For Your sake we are killed all day long;

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.—Romans 8:31-39

being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;—Philippians 1:6

Father…When I am weary, help me to do as Jeremiah did…help bring my heart to You.  Be my strong habitation to which I can resort continually.  Without You, I can do nothing good. But in You, I can do all things, because You strengthen me. You have seen me through in the past and You will see me through in the days that are still to come.