"If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5
A life verse is a passage from Scripture that impacted, shaped or drove me to a change of mindset, theology or action at some point in my journey. My life verses have grown over the years from one or two to several dozen Jeremiah12:5 being the most recent addition. About a year ago (or less) Pastor John from Northwest Community Church approached me about visiting me at my office in order to pray for me. I met Pastor John at Starbucks (our other office) a few years ago and since then we have become friends.
Without going into too much detail and not wanting to freak some of you out, this “prayer time” is a meeting where people pray over you asking God for insight into how He made you. Curious, and always up for prayer I agreed. After two hours of prayer, insight, confrontation, and yes, tears, they handed me their lists of verses, images and symbols of God’s original design for me. To say this was a life changing event would be a gross understatement.
Jeremiah 12:5 came out of this session. I am a man that has the spiritual gift of leadership according to Romans 12:8, serving as a youth pastor for more than two decades. As an “Associate Pastor” I have always sat in the second chair so after two decades of second chair training I have become look-over-my-shoulder leader.
Jeremiah asks the question, “If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses?” In other words, how will I ever be able to live on a higher level if I am stuck on this one? How can I achieve what God has for me if I am so worried about what others expect from me? How will I ever be able to fight Kingdom battles if I am overcome by earthly skirmishes?
“The thickets by the Jordan (River)” were overrun with wild beasts, especially lions. Jeremiah is literally telling us that if we want to live on the wild side we need to thrive in the tame country. If we struggle to survive under the horizontal protection of our church, job, home or even our government, how can we ever make it where, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).”
In other words, in order to live in victory on a vertical (spiritual) plain we must learn to thrive and grow on this horizontal (physical) realm.
Paul may have said it better when he told believers, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2).”
We live on a horizontal, temporal, physical plain but God demands that we shift our focus to the vertical, eternal, invisible plain where His glory reigns supreme. If we get wrapped up in the temptations and complaints of our everyday surroundings we will never experience the fullness that comes from living with abandon in His realm. Our daily temptation is to “run with men” but God draws our chins upward in order to reject mediocrity so that one day we might “compete with the horses.”
