Run With The Horses

Run With The Horses

It was a cloudy afternoon in late September. I was between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Chicago, and I was headed home after ten days of meetings. I was tired, very tired. In the days when I was producing citywide outreach events for young people, it seemed like I was always tired.

One event would finish, and in a few weeks I would be on another one. The timeline was ideally six months for an event plus some wrap-up after the event, so one could not dilly dally around or he would lose his season for the next event. It was just a continual aggressive cycle of travel, meetings and work.

“If you can’t run with the footmen, how will you run with the horses?”

“What?” I said.

“If you can’t run with the footmen, how will you run with the horses?” It was God talking to me. I recognized the words, from Jeremiah 12:5.

“Well, Lord . . . I . . . I . . . “

“What do you mean by that? Are you saying I have to work harder?”

“If you can’t run with the footmen, how will you run with the horses?” He said again.

“Lord, you’re being awful hard on me, here. Are you serious? You think I haven’t been working hard enough?”

Well, there was some silence, then. I guess the Lord thought I should think about it for a while. I did think about it for a long while and I don’t know if I ever figured it out, really.

Now, a few years later, I think that when I was doing events, I should have done more. Many people came to Christ in every event we did. A few years ago, the window to evangelistic events closed. Nobody wanted to do them anymore. I pitched about a dozen events in cities and none of them took off, due mostly to a lack of interest.

Reinhardt Bonke did huge events in Africa for a number of years. Then his organization decided the Lord was telling them to come to America. They did one event in Florida and have never done another one since. I don’t know why. I suspect because there is a general lack of passion on the part of the church for evangelistic events. Evidently, the season passed. The window closed.

I do know that things go in cycles and I suspect that interest in events will rise up again, probably very soon.

Driving home in my car that cloudy afternoon, I was quite taken back by the Lord’s words. I thought He was being a hard taskmaster. It didn’t seem like the God I knew. Nevertheless, the challenge He gave to Jeremiah was real. He was saying, “Don’t be a pansy. I know you’re exhausted, but there is a lot at stake here. Don’t be feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not becoming of you. I need you to keep going. Now is not the time to let up. There are bigger challenges ahead. You haven’t seen anything yet.

An acquaintance of mine attended Tommy Barnet’s church in Phoenix while he was going to school there. While I was visiting him, we went to church together at Tommy’s church. I think Tommy was nearing 60 at the time, and he was just full of passion as he preached and pranced around the stage.

“Is he always like this?” I asked my friend.

“Yes,” was the simple reply. Tommy was always full of energy, it seemed. That Sunday, Tommy told us a story I will never forget.

At the time, Tommy had the largest Assembly of God church in the nation, and another opportunity opened up to him in California. He could start another church there. It would be called the Dream Center.

Tommy was also exhausted at the time. I’ve been there. You just drag and drag and you feel terrible because you have no energy. You can’t seem to get enough time off to recover physically, so you just keep pushing yourself, through your fatigue. Pushing, pushing, pushing . . . it just seems like there is no break. You have to keep ahead of things, or at least, not get behind.

So, this was Tommy’s condition. And then this opportunity opened up in California. It was obviously an opportunity from God. That couldn’t be denied and that made it much more difficult for Tommy because he didn’t want to do it.

He went home from church that Sunday and in the afternoon, he decided to rebel. He wasn’t going to do this thing. He was too tired. Couldn’t God understand that? What did God think he was, anyway . . . a machine? So Tommy argued with God for a couple hours. He told God he wasn’t going to do this, and what did He expect from him, anyway? He was making his case that God was being unreasonable when the phone rang.

It was a pastor friend from another state. This friend started on a tirade. He told Tommy, “Tommy Barnet, if you pass up this opportunity, you are missing God!” I mean, this guy really tore into him. He warned him in no uncertain terms that he had better do this Dream Center, or he would be sorry.

In the end, Tommy did it God’s way. Somehow, in his exhaustion, he pushed ahead and made it through. They founded the Dream Center and as a result thousands of people came to Jesus.

I think Tommy’s circumstances qualified for Jeremiah’s situation (Jeremiah 12:5). Same thing. Jeremiah, you may be tired, boy, but you better get in a better frame of mind, because you haven’t seen anything yet. It’s going to get harder and you better get ready. If you can’t keep up with the footmen how are you going to run with the horses?”

For a number of months, God has been waking me up at somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m. to pray. I really do enjoy it, and I’m not complaining. However, sometimes the rigorous schedule catches up with me and I get very tired.

Yesterday morning was one of those times. God woke me at 3:30 a.m. I prayed for an hour, did some reading and then about 6 a.m. it really hit me. I felt totally depleted and burned out. I had a little talk with the Lord and He said, “You don’t have to write for a few days. Just take some time off.”

Then I started to doze off in my chair, but I began praying in the sprit. For the next few hours I prayed in the sprit, until about 10:30. Then an amazing thing happened. I realized I was not only rested, but I was totally refreshed in my spirit. I had some gusto, I felt like doing things.

I accomplished more yesterday by far than I do most days. It was a grand day! I thought, “I should pray four hours every day. I could really get things done for God.”

What is the lesson here? If God says to you, “If you can’t run with the footmen, how are you going to run with the horses?” Pay attention. He is giving you a challenge and an opportunity. God knows your frame. He knows what you are capable of. He knows that you may be so exhausted, you can hardly think, but He knows also that His Holy Spirit can supercharge you and take you to the next level of spiritual conquest. He is not picking on you or trying to torture you with an impossible schedule. Rather, He is providing the means whereby you can go to the next level of spiritual accomplishment. If you truly have a passion for the Lord, then you want to go to the next level. You want to become more capable, you want to become more fierce and dangerous to the devil.

Running with the horses is not an ominous warning of trouble ahead so much as it is an opportunity to jump to the next level in spiritual warfare. Don’t say, “No”, to God like Tommy almost did. Accept the challenge and cry out to God for strength and stamina.

Maybe you just go and pray. Find out how four hours of prayer can transform you.

Calling all warriors! Are you ready to run with the horses?

Photo designed and taken by Lorraine