Running with the horses is not for lazy people. Being a kingdom-minded person is understanding that we are partners with God, not simply heirs. God has assigned us a portion of WORK in His plan. We are not waiting to inherit something… We are working with God to achieve His purposes. Change your thinking!! God has the strategy, the master plan. Our job is to consult with Him and then do our part of the work. I do not believe that this is a once-off consultation and we get the plan. This will require a daily, persistent seeking of God to receive daily instructions, strategies and equipping.
Am I saying that everyone has to have a 2 hour quiet time in the morning – absolutely not. I am not prescribing to anyone, but it is interesting to note that world leaders and influential businesspeople have their days mapped out for them. Each day they receive their schedule for the day, detailing their appointments and information necessary for them to complete each assignment. Their days and their lives are shaped and managed to achieve the goals they have set for themselves. Most christians I know just seem to let life ‘happen’ to them. Circumstances shape our day. When we adopt this ‘lazy’ approach to life – we end up with a life shaped by someone else. I do not know about you, but I want God to shape my life. And that starts with Him shaping each day. If I am going to allow Him to shape each day, I need to know what His plan is for each day… and that requires a consulting, a setting aside of time to receive my instructions for the day. This is the lifestyle of those who have influence in world systems. Why do Christians believe we should have it easier?
Running with horses will require a lifestyle change. It is going to take persistence, diligence and faithfulness to get the job done. We must deal a death blow to our ‘instant results’ view of Christianity. Too many of us are like a character in a John Fowles short story – “he wanted Everest in a day; if it took two, he lost interest.” Kingdom initiatives are long-term. We understand that many of our endeavours may only come to fruition in the generations after us, but that does not make us any less diligent in our daily tasks of stewarding ourselves, our families, our jobs and our assignments. We are responsible to shape our lives so that it gives the Lord space and permission to mold us into the vessels of the Kingdom that He needs.
Running with horses demands that we take risks. In the church mentality, we want to protect everything and everyone. We want to keep everyone safe. But horse-riding is risky! Unexpected things happen and adjustments need to be made in the saddle. To run with horses, we need to cultivate a life of faith. Living each day believing that if God instructed it, we can do it. Trusting in the God who brought us this far. It is easy to trust God when we are young. We do not really know all that can go wrong. Look at a young child that wants to jump off the roof into the swimming pool… They believe they can do it and are not aware of the dangers. As we age, we experience pain, trauma, broken arms, cuts, bruises and we learn that there is risk attached to certain actions. We shy away from situations where we have been hurt before. We hesitate to throw ourselves into ventures simply at God’s Word because we have been wounded before. For many of us, as we age, we begin to live safely. Moderately. We tell ourselves that we are being wise, avoiding danger, we embrace security and constancy.
But the way of the Kingdom is to embrace Him and find our security in Him. He delights in doing new things and taking us on new paths. Herein lies our challenge. In 2013, God is doing a new thing. He has positioned us with the horses. He is speaking grand visions and plans to us, but they require leaps of faith. And for some of us, the leap scares us. We tried this before and we failed. We cannot leap without knowing where we going. If we do this, what will happen to our families, our loved ones, our jobs etc. The fear paralyses us and makes us look for the familiar and the known.
We are not the first ones to feel this way… In Jeremiah 42, we read how the remnant of Israelites left in Judah asked Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord whether they should stay in Jerusalem or go to Egypt. God directs the people to stay in Jerusalem. They were to be the remnant people out of whom God would develop His holy nation. God was asking them to stay and live by faith, trusting that God would establish them in their land. But they decided to go to Egypt. Their decision was partly out of fear – they feared attack from the Babylonians, but mostly, they were tired of living by faith. They were tired of taking risks and trusting God. They did not want the risk and hazard of depending on an invisible God. They wanted the security and stability of a solid economy. They did not want the hard work of rebuilding a life of faith in God. They wanted the easy life they thought awaited them in Egypt. “saying, ‘No, but we will go to the land of Egypt where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor be hungry for bread, and there we will dwell’– Jeremiah 42:14.
It is 2013 – God is asking us to take some risks. He is asking us to leap into the unknown with Him. He is asking us to trust that the God who brought us this far, will indeed take us on. It is time to face our fears. Radical trust, radical obedience, radical discipline must become the order of this day if we are to run with the horses and contend with world systems.
