Running With Horses

​The pastors at the church my family and I attend in Colorado Springs are currently preaching through the book of Revelation. Among the many things that make me sit up and go, hmmm, or, say what?!, are the so-called 4 horsemen of the apocalypse in Revelation 6, which represent conquest and domination (v. 2), violence and war (vv. 3-4), economic imbalance and privation (vv. 5-6), and death via sword, famine and plague (vv. 7-8). Far from some distant and indeterminate future, these 4 horses – white, fiery red, black, and pale – represent horrendous conditions that have affected and will continue to affect the world until Christ returns again to set things right.
 
Well, there’s no doubt that those 4 horses and their riders are doing their job and doing it too well! We’re right smack in the thick of it now with the COVID-19 pandemic, economic hardship, racial strife, and political turmoil, and all signs point to things worsening before they improve, if at all.
 
If you feel like all of this is starting to wear you down, you aren’t alone. Perhaps like Moses (in Numbers 11:11-15) and Jeremiah (in Jeremiah 12:1-4) and Asaph (in Psalm 73:2-14), we sense a complaint welling up within and spewing out of us: "When is all of this going to end, Lord? Why haven’t You stopped the pandemic, reversed the economic downturn, rolled back racial and social injustice, and restored peace and order in this nation??"
 
Perhaps, like Jacob, we cry: "Our way is hidden from the Lord; our cause is disregarded by our God" (cf. Isaiah 40:27). Only to hear God’s reply: "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)
 
Compete with horses – seriously?? Stand up to the 4 horses of conquest, war, privation, and death? You’ve got to be kidding us, right Lord? NOT! Quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus laid bare His mission on earth: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). And so too God’s call and anointing on us with the international students to and with whom He has appointed and assigned us!
 
Brothers and Sisters, our God’s promise is that we don’t run with the horses on our own. Nor does He expect us to. He gives us the strength and the endurance to do so; He is our strength!
 
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:27-31).