Heart Tracks - Would I?

 "Then the Lord replied to me, 'If racing against mere men makes you tired, how will you race against horses?  If you stumble and fall on open ground, what will you do in the thickets near the Jordan?' "  Jeremiah 12:5....."Though none go with me, still I will follow."  Would I?

Jeremiah was a great prophet, but was also known as the weeping prophet.  Why?  For all intensive purposes, he was a failure. He spent his life speaking God's word to a people who not only would not listen, but mocked, ridiculed, hated, and sought to kill him.  Seemingly worst of all, God Himself told him that this would be the result of his obedience to His call.  I've been meditating on the life and ministry of not only Jeremiah, but of all the prophets.  For the most part, following Him did not yield a life filled with benefit and blessing.  Hardship and the appearance of failure more often than not was their portion.  And, as He did with Jeremiah, the Father told them it would be so.  None went with them.  Still, they followed.  The question that gnaws at my heart is, if He placed such a call upon me, would I?  If none go with me as I go with Him, would I still go?  Will I still follow?  Or, do I need to "see" results before I continue to go on with Him?  If following Him means the appearance of complete failure, can I, will I, go on?

The words the Father spoke to Jeremiah in 12:5 are timely for me today, and each day.  He calls us each to "run with horses," and to cut through the most dense, impassable thickets, and to do so when all that seems to lie ahead are more racing horses, and more impassable thickets.  Can we, will we, go on?  What I'm writing may well speak to those who are in ministry, but really, it speaks to every area of our lives.  What do we do with the reality that in our going with Him, every aspect of our circumstances are against us?  What do we do if every aspect of our marriage, family, job, as well as our emotional and physical state is the polar opposite of that which we thought and believed they would be?  The Father spoke the words to Jeremiah above in response to his complaint that nothing in life was as it should be.  God did not explain Himself to him, didn't even acknowledge the truth of Jeremiah's complaint.  He just wanted to know if he would go on with Him in spite of all of it.  He did.  Would we?  Do we?  In the place where we are in life today, whatever that place may entail, do we follow.....even if those we love most, serve with all our hearts, sacrifice all for, do not go with us, even reject us? 

I am learning more and more that what I "do" for Him, and the giving of my life for Him, has far more to do with the details of eternity than it ever will the temporal, the here and now.  Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Hosea, and all those saints through both the Old and New Testaments, had no idea that the lives of faithfulness they lived would continue to speak to those that followed them throughout the ages...and beyond.  The same is true for you and I.  We may see our lives as being lived out in futility now, but if we are yielded and obedient to Him, following where He leads, even though none seem to go with us, none do go with us, I believe they'll continue to speak long after we have left this realm.  We will live with eternity in view, and always before us. There will be pain in the fact that none go with us, but He does, and He will take the offering of our lives and use it for His glory.  We may not see the fruit of that here, but we will see it one day.

The horses are running, and the thickets lie before us.  He bids us to go on, with Him, even if we do so alone, unnoticed, unknown, to everyone but Him.  Christ walks by our side, the Holy Spirit empowers each step.  And we go on.....as He goes with us.

Blessings,
Pastor O