ENCOURAGEMENT FOR WEARY SOULS
Recent events in our world have reminded me of the time in which I grew up. A week ago I was preparing my next lesson to teach the fourth and fifth graders at my church. The designated lesson is about Paul’s third missionary journey. I knew this would be a great lesson to tie in what we had just witnessed with the assassination of Charlie Kirk and his testimony and witness. Initially, I was going to start out by saying how much harder it is for kids today to be witnessing all this violence and hatred and how the world was different for them than it was for me and even my co-teacher who happens to be my daughter-in-law from the Millennial generation. But then I remembered the day when I was nine years old and had stayed home from school because I was sick. I was watching TV when they broke into the regularly scheduled program to announce that President Kennedy had been shot. Over the course of the next few years, we would live through many tumultuous events, namely, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Civil Rights riots, the Vietnam War and the rioting and related protests, the Hippie Movement and Drug Culture, and the Kent State massacre. Difficult times. So, no, maybe not harder as far as having to experience difficult things. What is different is the impact of social media fanning the flames of bitterness and hatred.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone: we are in a war. The good news is we have a training manual and we know the Commander of the Army, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Still, it is not easy and in fact is going to get harder the closer we get to Christ’s return. I know all of us warriors are feeling pretty weary and battle worn right now. So now is a good time to examine a few things as we recoup and get ourselves back in shape.
Let’s begin with the heart. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech. Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil.” NLT
The NKJV says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.”
We know from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and other passages that there are three parts of man, spirit, soul and body. (This is a lesson for another time, but can also be found in many other studies on ThinkingGirlsBibleStudy.com.) From what I can understand and discern from the Scriptures about the heart it seems to penetrate through all three parts. The heart is the source of our beliefs, our thoughts, and our attitudes. It is absolutely vital that we make guarding our hearts a priority.
We are made a new creation and given a new heart when we are saved. But we can allow many things to come into our heart and to take up residence in our hearts that lead to bitterness and hardness. Jeremiah 17:9-10 in the Amplified Version says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and it is extremely sick; who can understand it fully and know its secret motives? ‘I, the Lord, search and examine the mind, I test the heart, to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.’” The Lord is the only one that truly knows what is in our hearts. We might have a good idea that something is there that needs to be addressed, but we need the Lord to show us since He’s the only one that truly knows. I know in my own life, when I could sense distance with the Lord for a season, and then coming to this passage in Jeremiah and asking the Lord to show me what was in my heart that I wasn’t seeing. He showed me I had a hardness there from the hurt I had experienced from a loved one. The hurt was real, but I had stuffed it deep down. I repented.
We live in a harsh world. We live in a world full of hate and vitriol. It goes without saying that social media is heavily responsible for this and keeps it in a vicious cycle. Everything is amplified. Things start crowding into our hearts and minds. We experience bullying, offensive remarks emboldened by the fact that these things don’t have to be said to one’s face. It’s very easy to be offended in our culture today. And offense is justified. But here’s the thing we need to decide: we’re not going to take up the offense—ever. I have seen firsthand the root of bitterness that was the result of taking up offense and nursing the wounds and then the unforgiveness, the hatred, the anger that became a very hard heart. How much better, when we are offended, to take the offense to the Lord. To lay it down at the cross and to decide to suffer with Him. To identify with His sufferings in this and to let Him transform us by renewing our minds in this moment. That’s where spiritual growth and maturity happen.
Let’s look at some Scriptures to help us in this. Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” NKJV
The book of Hebrews was written to Jewish believers who were wanting to escape persecution. The author was encouraging them that we can’t go back. We have a race to run. We can’t be encumbered by weights and sin. These offenses weigh us down. Anger, bitterness, resentment weigh us down. We’re not running a sprint. We’re in a marathon. First of all, let’s keep our eyes on Jesus. In fact, let’s just look at that passage now: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” (Hebrews 12:1-3 NKJV) If we take our eyes off Jesus and look around at others and get caught up in what they are doing or saying, we will stumble.
I have also found comfort in Hebrews 10:22-25 that comes right after the great cloud of witnesses from the Hall of Faith passage: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Now back to Hebrews 12:12-15 with the warning of the root of bitterness: “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.” NKJV
I’m reminded of the passage where John the Baptist sent a message to Jesus asking, “Are You the Coming One or do we look for another?” Matthew 11:4-6: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.’” NKJV
Here John was in prison. He had spent his life preparing the way for the Messiah. And what had it gotten him? He was in prison about to be beheaded. But what a privilege to have had this role. No, don’t take offense. Suffer with and identify with Jesus. The reward is ahead.
To bring this into a landing, let's look at one more passage in Jeremiah 12. Jeremiah was having a hard time understanding why the wicked in Judah and Jerusalem seemed to be prospering while he was suffering. He took his question to the Lord appropriately by recognizing and submitting to God’s righteousness. He points out that God is near in their mouths but far from their minds. These people were religious, but did not really care about God and the things of God. Jeremiah 12:5 is the beginning of God’s answer: “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace,in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?” NKJV
I like what David Guzik says in his commentary, “God’s answer to Jeremiah was both powerful and profound. Without directly answering the question (a more complete answer is given in Psalm 73), God encouraged Jeremiah to regard his present challenge as a preparation for greater challenges to come.
i. Jeremiah was certainly in a challenge — like a hard-fought race with the footmen. There was a sense of spiritual and mental and emotional exertion involved with the persecution from his fellow villagers from Anathoth and his question regarding the prosperity of the wicked and why God did not seem to deliver justice to them.
ii. Yet even with the appreciation of that challenge, there were greater challenges to come. By analogy, Jeremiah could expect to run against horses in the future. He needed to learn how to trust God and to draw on His strength in his present challenge, in order to prepare him for the greater challenges in the future.”1
Guzik continues with this, “i. “If you complain about the simple things God has already asked you to do, then you lack the spiritual strength to do what he wants you to do next.” (Ryken)
iv. “He seems to have been a little afraid of the people among whom he dwelt. They had evidently persecuted him very much, mocked at him, and laughed him to scorn; but God tells him to make his face like flint, and not to care for them, for, says he, If thou art afraid of them, ‘How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?’ This ought to be a rebuke to every Christian who is subject to the fear of man.” (Spurgeon)2
All that to say, this is preparation for the bigger battles that ultimately win the war. War consists of many battles. And we know that ultimately the war has already been won. Nevertheless, here we are. So let’s review the battle plan. Remember, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. All the hateful, mean, deluded people are not the enemy. Or maybe it's not the hateful people of the world that have offended us, but our own loved ones. Our enemies are powers, principalities , the rulers of darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Remember these people are not our enemies, but people who need to see Jesus. We need to see these people the way God sees them. We need to be salt and light to them.
The next thing to remind ourselves of is what God wants is our devotion above all the things we think we “do for Him.” He wants us to dwell with Him, to abide with Him, to spend time with Him and in His Word. To remain with Him. He wants us to sit with His Word in our lap, day after day, making notes, dating passages when He clearly gives us a word, and then having sweet fellowship when He takes us to that passage again. Then He will show us what He would have us do. The day we hear, “Well done, My good and faithful servant” will be so worth it. All the hard stuff now won’t even matter.
I want to close with a long quote from the book The Prisoner in the Third Cell by Gene Edwards. This book is about what I mentioned above with John the Baptist’s question and the answer Jesus gave. Here’s the quote:
A day like that which awaited John awaits us all. It is unavoidable because every believer imagines his God to be a certain way and is quite sure his Lord will do certain things under certain conditions. But your Lord is never quite what you imagined Him to be.
You have now come face to face with a God whom you do not fully understand. You have met a God who has not lived up to your expectations. Every believer must come to grips with a God who did not do things quite the way it was expected.
You are going to get to know your Lord by faith or you will not know Him at all. Faith in Him, trust that is in Him…not in His ways.
Today you are resentful of those who so callously hurt you. But no, not really. The truth is you are angry with God because ultimately, you are not dealing with men, you are dealing with the sovereign hand of your Lord. Behind all events, behind all things, there is always His sovereign hand.
The question is not, “why is God doing this? Why is He like this?” The question is not, “Why does He not answer me?” The question is not, “I need Him desperately, why does He not come rescue me?” The question is not, Why did God allow this tragedy to happen to me, to my children, to my wife, to my husband, to my family?” Nor is it, “Why does God allow injustices?”
The question before the house is this: “Will you follow a God you do not understand? Will you follow a God who does not live up to your expectations?”
Your Lord has put something in your life which you cannot bear. The burden is simply too great. He was never supposed to do this! But the question remains, “Will you contine to follow this God who did not live up to your expectations?”
“And blessed are you if you are not offended with Me.”3
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- Guzik, David. "Study Guide for Jeremiah 12." Blue Letter Bible. 6/2022. Web. 25 Sep, 2025. <https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/guzik_david/study-guide/jeremiah/jeremiah-12.cfm>.
- Ibid.
- Gene Edwards, The Prisoner in the Third Cell, Tyndale, 79-80.
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