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Footmen

by Shannon Heiden  
2/28/2008 / Devotionals

Footmen,

If you have raced with mere men on foot, and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble and fall on open and safe ground, how will you manage in the thickets of Jordan? Your brothers, your own family members have turned against you, they have raised complaints against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you. Jeremiah 12:5-6

Have you ever been face-to-face with men who have worn you out? Not just any men but brothers, confidants, men you trusted? They can be family members, your closest friends, spiritual leaders, co-workers, husbands, and wives, even children. Do you know what it is to share your life and open your heart to men just to have your kindness trampled underfoot? To have goodness repaid in full by evil?

Jeremiah understood this very well, I too now understand this and perhaps you the person reading this knows the pain and the brokenness this passage speaks of. This was the Lord's answer to Jeremiahs suffering. Jeremiah cried unto the Lord why? Why has this happened, why have you sent me here with a purpose and a plan, and why have I been rejected and torn to pieces?

It always amazes me the way the Lord deals with His people, His beloved, His children. The Lord is so kindhearted and tender, He is compassionate and understanding, He is merciful and abounding with grace, and yet in our darkest hour, when tears streamline down our face, when the pain is just to unbearable, He speaks a word not to our pain and broken heart but to the warrior, to the over comer, to the spirit man inside of us.

The Lord in my experience very rarely gives an explanation to the injustice done unto us, but I have learned this, He always speaks a word of victory and of hope to keep pressing through.

The Lord basically in His wisdom told Jeremiah, if running with these men has caused you to lose heart and faint, and these are just men, mere specks on my overall plan, how in the world Jeremiah will you ever race against horses in all their strength? If this small thing in a safe land overcomes you, how will I ever be able to send you into the thickets of Jordan, into a land with giants?

I recently walked through a horrible, unforeseen, painful situation. It involved men who were the closest to me, family members; members of my own house both physically and spiritually. The magnitude of the pain and brokenness I experienced was inflamed by my personal involvement with each of these people, I broke bread with them, walked side by side with them, I was vulnerable in every way with them. I loved them, prayed for them and believed God for the best in their lives only to have the final result end with me being rejected, lied about, spoken horribly of and cast off like a dirty garment.

I knew the Lord had placed each of these men in my life; He handpicked them and myself to dwell together for a season. What do you do when the plan of God brings forth pain and suffering, rejection and torment, sleepless nights, hours and hours of tears and wrestling in prayer? How do you continue to love and stand in integrity and believe God for everything He has promised in the midst of heartache? How do you not throw your hands up in disbelief and give up?

The Lord has given us the answer. He didn't speak to my pain and the why's, He spoke to the warrior, the soldier, the mighty woman He knew would prevail. In this passage He acknowledges the wrong done to us, He acknowledges the fact that we have been lied about, we have been rejected, but He doesn't speak to the problem, He speaks to the future, to the answer. It's as if He lovingly says to Jeremiah, to you and to me, I saw it, I see it all, but if this will break you, if these men and their words and actions will destroy you than how can you ever go forward into what I need you to do? How can you ever face the giants that await you, how can you ever take the Promised Land where you will have to fight although it has been given to you?

Yes, you have been wronged, I see your tears, BUT is there not purpose in your pain? Are you not stronger because of it? Have you not learned to trust Me through it? Are we not closer now than before and can you now say, I will not fear what man can do to me?
Don't you now know exactly what I mean when I say "that no weapon formed against you will prosper and every tongue that rises in judgment against you I will condemn?

I can't tell you what this passage has done to me, in all my time meditating and reading the scriptures I never knew it was in there but just as the Lord hides His plan from us until the right time to unveil it, I was led to this answer in my pain. The moment I gazed upon it I felt the breath of God infuse me with life, His life and I was strengthened and changed in a moment. He taught me that no one will ever love me right but Him, I cannot count on men not even men of my own house but I can count on him and just because there is pain and suffering doesn't' mean the plans have changed, I have learned that the pain was part of the plan all along. When everyone else walked out, HE most definitely walked in and He has never left my side, even when my world was falling apart, the one thing that remained was MY GOD.

I will close with this; pain and pressure are not our enemies. They are the very catalysts to finding our purpose and power in Christ. Without them, we are left in a cloud of mediocrity, comfort zones and in a subtle way we can admit, sometimes we like it that way. But thanks be unto God who always leads us in triumph, and friend, you and I cannot know triumph until we have walked through trouble first!

Shannon Heiden
[email protected]
changingonelifereachingmany.typepad.com

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