More than a conqueror. That’s what you are in Him—even on those (sometimes wobbly) tightropes and challenging precipices of your walk with Him.

© desireofmysoul.faith & SoulBreaths.com. All rights reserved.

READING TIME: 5 MINUTES.

Note: This post—about the Modah Ani prayer, Hebrew audio, and deeper-dive explanation—is my response to a request from a Ladies Bible group to share the prayer and how I use it.

The sun rises. The sun sets. And with God’s immense grace, it begins all over again.

When you awake, He lovingly and faithfully returns your soul to you—a resurrection of sorts, coming forth from the slumber of night. Each morning’s breath a gift from Him, a reminder of His presence and kingship. A reminder that no matter how precarious that faith-walk tightrope might seem, God’s hand is holding you. He’s got this.

There are three revealing Hebrew words used interchangeably in the Bible for soul. One of them is neshama [neh-shah-mah], God’s breath of life.

Just as God breathed His divine breath into Adam (nishmat chayim [נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים], Genesis 2:7) to spark and animate the body’s and soul’s dimensions . . . so He has done with you. His holy breath flows through you. How glorious is that?

Think of it: God’s initial breath gave you life.

Jesus’s last breath redeemed your life.

This 17th century Modeh/Modah Ani prayer—serving as a template, a launching pad for a personal deep-dive with God every morning—helps us remember who He is and what we are, putting things in their rightful perspective from the start.

In fact, it’s usually said before even getting out of bed—but you can say it anytime during the morning.

We say it because . . . . .

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel
and His Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no God.
—Isaiah 44:6

I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you don’t know me,
that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me.
—Isaiah 45: 5-6 (verses 6-7 in Tanakh/Hebrew Bible).

That’s why when we draw our first breath upon awakening, we can’t help but be . . .

Grateful.

H

u

m

b

l

e

d.

Surrendered to His will and ways, not ours.

Acknowledging that nothing is above or beyond or equal to Him. We admit we’re created to praise, glorify, and serve Him in our thoughts, words, actions.

So let’s get started by . . .

1. making a quick stop in the Hebrew and English

2. then traveling below the surface a bit to flesh out the deeper meaning tucked within the Hebrew to use those reflections as a template, personalizing it every morning as you greet your King

PIT STOP: THE HEBREW & ENGLISH

One quick note: the first two words, the title of the prayer, are Modeh ani (word usage for men) and Modah ani (word usage for women).

Modeh/Modah Ani

מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶיךָ מלך חַי וְקַיָּם שֶהֶחֱזַרְתָּ בִּי נִשְׁמָתִי בְחֶמְלָה,
רַבָּה אֱמוּנָתֶךָ

English Translation

I am thankful (I give thanks) before You, living, enduring, sustaining, eternal King [King of life, King who sustains us]. You’ve returned my soul within me with compassion. Great is your faithfulness.

Getting ready for the prayer trek

Note: the kh and ch are guttural, like a hard “k” sound stuck in the back of your throat. The audio (done in Hebrew for a female) is at the end of this post.

Rote prayer isn’t your target. You can move beyond the prayer’s words to a more soul-stirring perspective—one that helps you get still and tap into that special place.

I’m talking about His secret place. A protective crevice in Him, our Rock, where the powerful waterfall from His throne rains down on your soul and blesses you with revelation, refreshment, new mercies, and a word from Him, the Creator and Lover of your soul.

How my Modah Ani prayer time flows: I say Modah Ani in phrases (as given in the next section), pausing in between each phrase to reflect on what it means to me that morning. I also weave in prayer requests at one juncture (just before the final phrase).

REFLECTING ON HIM: ENGLISH/HEBREW PHRASING

The template below—broken into phrases with deeper reflections after each phrase—gives an example of how you can personalize Modeh/Modah Ani every morning.

Let the Holy Spirit lead you as you consider what’s in your soul at that moment when you think of Him, when you think of you standing before Him, when you think about His immense faithfulness and majesty.

Transliteration: Modeh/Modah ani:

English: I am thankful (I give thanks)

Deeper reflection: I am awake, my eyes open, and my soul acknowledges and is aware that there is something greater than me—You, God, Ruler of the universe.

***

Transliteration: l’fanekha:

English: before you

Deeper reflection: I—my innermost self, my soul—is here, before you, shadowed and overcome by your greatness, too marvelous for me to comprehend, too deep for me to fathom. I am stilled by your Name, your character, your might.

In this moment, I realize that there’s no need for debate. You are the Glorious King. Period. You who created me.

I’m grateful for who you are and what you’ve done for me. I surrender before your Lordship. I am yours.

Writing that prompted me to share lyrics from a worship song sung in the mid-80s about God’s Holy Spirit, a consuming fire, reminding us to approach Him in humility, in awe:

Consume me, consume me with your fire, Lord.
Consume me, consume with your fire.
Consume me, consume with your fire, Lord,
that I might know the power of your love.

***

Transliteration: melekh chai v’kayam:

English: King, living and eternal (sustaining/enduring)

Deeper reflection: You are here with me in this physical world . . . yet you are on your throne, high and lifted up, holy and just, righteous and merciful, eternal without a beginning or an end. You are too marvelous for me.

You are the unseen God that my soul sees and knows. You are the promised author and perfecter of my faith. In You—through our messiah, Yeshua (Jesus)—is life, sustaining, full, complete, good.

Your Word is everlasting, relentlessly faithful, forever true—and it lives within my soul, correcting me, leading me, teaching me, refining me, reminding me, hemming me in. Day in, day out. With every soul-breath inhaled, with every soul-breath exhaled. You are there.

***

Transliteration: shehekhezarta bi (bee):

English: you’ve returned within me (restored)

Transliteration: nishmati

English: my soul (breath of life)

Transliteration: b’chemla:

English: with compassion (mercifully, graciously)

Deeper reflection: You have graced me with another morning. A day to serve you, to speak of your greatness and character, to speak your Name, to share the Good News of salvation through our Messiah, to do whatever you ask me to do this day. Your breath flows through me . . . I am yours.

But you didn’t return my soul because of obligation or randomly, without thought. You returned it with intentionality, a purpose . . . and you did it personally—from You to me. Not merely in one fell swoop, generically to the masses. Your love, mercy, grace, compassion rose up from your throne and blessed me with another breath to walk with you on earth and serve you.

You alone know the number of days you’ve given to me . . . So please teach me to number my days that I may have a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12). Your kindness and love overwhelm me. Thank you, my Lord, my King, my God.

***

Intercession: If I feel led—and most of the time I do—this is where I begin intercession for critical needs that day for others . . . then I thank Him because I can go nowhere else for help . . . it’s His tried-and-true faithfulness that I’m counting on.

***

Transliteration: raba emunatekha:

English: abundant/great is your faithfulness

Deeper reflection: Who is like you? Faithful and true, King of Kings, Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:11-16). What am I that you’re mindful of me (Psalm 8:1-4) . . . how vast is your faithfulness, how deep is your love, what breadth, what height (Ephesians 3:14-19), and how mighty are your ways.

Guide me today, let me hear your voice in my soul, and please help me to do your will, lifting up your name wherever you send me, becoming a carrier of your presence, conquering by the words of my testimony . . . telling of your goodness, grace, salvation, and faithfulness.

***

Blessings on you, dear reader, precious one in the Lord. May He cover you in the shelter of His wings as you go deeper to seek His face and serve your King.

AUDIO EXCERPT

Here’s how the Modeh/Modah Ani prayer sounds in Hebrew (female wording)—it’s slowly voiced with deliberateness to hear the syllables.

 
 

 

PHOTO CREDIT

Backpacked girl facing mountainous region by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash.com

Wrecking ball basic photo by alphaspirit with my text added on—purchased 2021 from iStock.com (ID:1204137944).

Morning, man praying photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.com

Women, calm, reflective photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash.com

NOTE: Rabbi Tzvi Freeman’s commentary on Modeh Ani (chabad.org) further sparked my morning Modah Ani reflections.

MOSES (MOSHE)
fugitive prince turned bride guardian—who almost missed his calling

desireofmysoul.faith & SoulBreaths.com. All rights reserved.

First—click this pop-up for a 1-2-3 recap of God's soul-remodeling wilderness call.

READING TIME: 6 MINUTES.

Ever since my younger years—later elementary school and decades forward—God has used Moses as an example to awaken and stir my soul, guiding it into a deeper understanding of God’s Word, God’s character, God’s name, God’s holiness, God’s immensity, and God’s desire for humbled, obedient leaders and followers.

Moses was a surrendered soul, truly in love with his God. But even with all he was allowed to do under God’s hand, he was still a man.

Egypt proved a blessing for the twelve tribes of Israel during the famine years when Joseph held a high position. Then the shift emerged and Israel experienced over 400 years of oppressive enslavement.

But God’s precision timing was about to unfold—not only for Moses’s soul, but also for Israel’s.
 

God begins by separating Moses from the common—his birth tribe and his adopted, privileged position in Egypt—for a series of deconstructing-reconstructing encounters—meetups with God to beat all others.

God’s lightning revelations flashed through Moses’s soul
time and time again.
Moses was humbled at the burning bush,
silenced at the sight of God’s glory,
illuminated at God’s giving of the Torah.

It was a process of discovering who he was in God.

Lightning cracked through Moses’s soul when he first encountered the Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. His response was a natural one. He brought down the Egyptian to help raise up that slave.

Moses’s destiny burst forth for a moment, like a firefly flash . . . a hint of what was to come, what would be birthed . . . a foretaste of the servant redeemer that his soul was meant to be.

From that major lightning crack across the sky at the burning bush, his soul’s relationship with the living God rose to such a magnitude that the flashes of lightning became his new norm.

Times on the mountain, glory times in the tent. It all was part and parcel of what it would mean—for him and us—to flow in God’s presence, spirit, and the prophetic.

BUT MOSES ALMOST MISSED IT

Torah scholar/commentator/author Avivah Zornberg gave some insight about “The Transformation of Pharoah, Moses, and God,” during an interview by OnBeing.com’s Krista Tippet.

Moses argued with God for seven days no less when he was first called to lead Israel. His thinking was rooted in earthly, physical standards, not in a heavenly perspective.

Internal resistance was stirring in his soul.

Psychologically, Zornberg says, Moses—like Pharoah and the Hebrews—has an unwillingness to open himself to an alternative reality.

He blames it on his speech—in the Hebrew the wording is heavy (kaved, kah-vehd,כָּבֵד). Moses says he’s got a heavy/impeding mouth and heavy/impeding tongue: כְבַד-פֶּה וּכְבַד לָשׁוֹן. Clearly, a negative connotation.

There’s another word association, per Zornberg.

The Hebrew word for heavy (kaved) is the same word used to describe Pharoah’s hardness of heart during the ten plagues—with the negative connotation of being closed in/off, impervious, resistant.

[Note: Kaved is not kavod—ka-vohd (long o sound) (כָּבוד) means glory or honor. Same shoresh (root), so there’s a link. Yet, as we’re seeing, kaved often reflects a negative usage; kavod, a positive one.]

Was the heavy (kaved) tongue of Moses also closed off, resistant to God?

Moses, per Zornberg, appears willing to forego the whole opportunity to redeem Israel, seeing himself as not the right person for the job. He does recognize, she posits, that an “operation” of sorts is needed—since Moses is like a babe in need of a circumcision and refers to himself as a man of uncircumcised lips.

However, this “heaviness,” an inability to open up to God and His word—psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, or otherwise—appears to go well beyond Moses, Israel’s exodus years, and Pharoah.

The Cambridge Bible commentary states the “closed in” or “impervious to good impressions” wording in regards to a “heavy, uncircumcised heart” appears elsewhere in the Tanakh: Leviticus 26:41, Jeremiah 9:25(26), and Ezekiel 44:7,9.

The wording also is used similarly when speaking of the ear, in Jeremiah 6:10, revealing that the nation heard imperfectly.

I dare say this “heaviness” is a human condition. One that only a spiritual surgery in God’s wilderness venues can heal. Turning a no into a . . . teetering if-you-say-so.

QUESTIONABLE BRIDE—REDEEMING BRIDE GUARDIAN

Fortunately for us, Moses surrendered to God’s soul deconstructing-reconstructing process and embraced his soul’s calling—as Israel’s leader, intercessor, shepherd, bride guardian.

So much so that the Torah’s final words in Deuteronomy (Devarim) 34 say that “no prophet in Israel has since arose whom God knew face to face” and that Moses “evoked great terror before the eyes of all Israel.”

Rabbinic commentary says this great terror is none other than Moses’s shattering of the first set of tablets—which is linked to a midrash (exegesis/commentary on biblical narrative, sometimes reimagined to consider possible explanations). It goes something like this.

So there was a king, a bride-to-be, and her maidservants.

The king heads out of town on some business, putting the maidservants in care of his bride. But their character was lacking, big time. They engaged in harlotry, consequently smudging the betrothed bride’s character.

That pushed the king’s anger into overdrive. To the point where he wanted his betrothed killed and out of his life. Clean and tidy.

But the bride’s guardian was quick on his feet. As soon as he learned of the king’s intentions, he swooped in and destroyed the marriage contract: “Even if she was found wanting, she wasn’t your wife yet. So all’s good. She’s not accountable to the contract.”

Presto. No need to kill her. That appeased the king, which was a good thing because he later discovered his bride’s behavior really hadn’t been awry—just her maidservants’.

The bride’s guardian stepped in and suggested the king write a new marriage contract.

The king agrees. “Fine. But since you tore up the first one, you provide the paper and I’ll write it in my own hand.”

SOUND FAMILIAR?

 
Israel is found wanting—though not all of them. Moses protects her covenant with God by destroying the first marriage agreement, the first set of tablets that God had carved and written on.

Then when God is willing to redo the marriage contract, He has Moses co-labor with him by carving out the tablets that God will write on.

But the Ramban—Nachmanides, a Spanish Sephardic rabbi and noted medieval Jewish scholar—adds another component. He says Moses had a temper, i.e. killing the Egyptian and striking the rock incidents. So it wasn’t all about his acting as defender of the bride.

I tend to merge the two thoughts. When you have a critical position that has to be assigned to someone—maybe a person who will handle significant aspects of your business or oversee your health directive or your will—you need to choose someone who won’t be intimidated in making tough, God-led, wise decisions. Someone who can do that in a split moment, if needed.

That’s why I think God chose Moses. Yes, he had passion, a temper even. For Moses, when something was wrong, it was wrong. He acted on it. The excessive actions of the Egyptian, the excessive rebellion of Israel at the rock.

In his talmudic commentary Shabbat 87a, French medieval rabbi Rashi played with the reading of “ashur” (meaning “that” or “which”) for “ishur” (meaning “affirm” or “praise”) to basically suggest that when it comes to the shattered tablets, it’s as if God thanked or praised Moses for his actions.[1]

Was God saying this? “Thank you, bride guardian, for having the passion, wisdom, boldness, and courage to make the hard decision when needed to defend Israel and allow me to still make covenant with her via a new contract.”

Quite possibly.

One thing’s for certain. Through all his soul’s wilderness travails with Israel and within himself, Moses humbly steadies the course at all costs—relinquishing any rights to a personal life or family legacy . . . God’s people became his legacy.

Read all the Soul Remodeling stories:

• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Sarah]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Joseph]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Moses]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Jeremiah]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Saul Paulus]

I’ve had my God- designed wilderness journeys to deconstruct-reconstruct my soul. How about you? These posts can shed some light and encouragement: Soul Remodeling Series: The Wilderness Call, Part 1 and Soul Remodeling Series: The Wilderness Call, Part 2.

[1] Rashi’s comment per an article called “The Marriage Contract,” appearing on www.meaningfullife.com

PHOTO CREDITS:

Blurred Arrow Target photo by Ricardo Arce on Unsplash

Broken Heart photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Article created August 17, 2015.

JEREMIAH (YIRMEYAHU)

Running with Horses

accidental prophet—kohen (priest) became a vessel of holy fire

© desireofmysoul.faith & SoulBreaths.com. All rights reserved.

First—click this pop-up for a 1-2-3 recap of God's soul-remodeling wilderness call.

READING TIME: 8 MINUTES.

Personally, I really like the 1998 Lux Vid film Jeremiah, directed/written by Harry Winer and starring Patrick Dempsey as the weeping prophet. Yes, it weaves in a non-Biblical, yet quite plausible, plot line here and there—but it also breathes life into Jeremiah’s soul story.

Dempsey hits the right emotional notes, delivering a spiritually encouraging performance—equally matched by the rest of the cast. And if you haven’t guessed, I watch it often.

Jeremiah’s real story begins with God awakening the soon-to-be prophet’s soul, pronouncing his destiny. There would be no discussion, no fiery bush, no staff-turned-snake demonstrations as Adonai had done with Moses.

It would begin with a stirring, voiced in the womb.

Heaven and I wept together,

And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine.

—The Hound Of Heaven, Francis Thompson

Back story: Around 755 BCE, Amos and Hosea prophesied to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, who had long meshed their Judaism with paganism. Israel ignored the warnings and landed in the middle of God’s divine discipline: Assyrian captivity, 721 BCE after a three-year siege.

But the Southern Kingdom, Judah, wasn’t so quick to learn from the idolatrous falterings of its fellow tribesmen.

According to the Lord: Truth had perished—vanished from their lips. They clung to deceit, no one repented, they refused to return to the Lord’s ways. Each pursued their own course like a horse charging into battle.

And so, along came God’s love call to His nation: Jeremiah.

Born in Anatot—a town given to the tribe of Benjamin, per Joshua 21, about three miles northeast of Jerusalem by way of the Mount of Olives—Jeremiah’s call-to-action probably occurred sometime before he was 25 or 30 . . . old enough to marry, but not yet beginning his rightful kohen (priestly) duties as son of the High Priest, Hilkiah.

Then the Lord reached out His hand
and touched my mouth and said to me,
“Now I have put my words in your mouth.
Today, I have placed you over nations and kingdoms
to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to demolish,
to build and to plant.”
—Jeremiah 1:9

Jeremiah would be strategically placed in God’s archery bow—launched into dark moments taking him to near death. Yet along the way, spiritually transformed deeper and deeper and deeper still.

Jeremiah, a prophetic voice to a rebellious nation.
A kohen, standing in for Judah before the Lord.
God’s relentless love would trigger
deconstruction (tearing down/captivity) to breathe forth
reconstruction (humbled souls realigned with Him,
a return to their Land,
and Temple restoration).

For twenty years, Jeremiah sounds the alarm of the impending seventy-year Babylonian captivity—which is gradual, done in waves, beginning around 605 BCE, taking princes (like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah) for positions. Then toward the end, the captors deport the poorest of the poor Judeans as slaves.

LIKE MOSES, FEELING UNREADY

Jeremiah’s calling wouldn’t be easy. He pretty much knows that going in. What’s ahead—a lonely soul experience with twists, turns, and chasmic drops—would break off any hardness and self-focus to uncover the soul’s holy hiddenness.

By God’s further command, there would be no wife. And no children. And no living his priestly heritage. No normality on any level.

Only risks and danger—on the wings of a prophetic calling that would voice sorrow, pain, surrender, exile, and the promise of a future redemption for Judah, a nation whose “soul” was under the power of its earthbound vessel. Unwilling, prideful, rebellious, delusional.

But you [Jeremiah], dress for action, stand up,
and tell them everything I order you to say.
Don’t break down or I will break you down in front of them.
For today, I have made you into a fortified city, a pillar of iron,
a wall of bronze against the whole land—against
the kings of Judah,
against its princes, against its cohanim [priests],
and the people of the land.
They [Judah] will fight against you, but will not overcome you,
for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the LORD.
—Jeremiah 1:17-19

Jeremiah’s knee-jerk reaction? Like Moses, the young kohen (priestly family) thought God should look elsewhere. His “I’m only a young man” response in Jeremiah 1:6—the word is na’ar (נַעַר) in the Hebrew text—reveals Jeremiah’s take on his lack of abilities and readiness.

A na’ar is a young man, defined by age (teen through twenties) or of marriageable age, and sometimes rabbinically defined as not yet ready to fulfill his duties/position.

Do you know who else the Bible calls na’ar and not a yeled (ילד, child/boy), despite some biblical translations?

(1) Seventeen-year-old Joseph in Genesis 37:2 when he was with his brothers, tending the flocks

(2) young Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:1 when he first heard God’s voice calling him

(3) Isaac in Genesis 22:5 when Avraham was going to sacrifice him—rabbinic/scholarly thoughts are that Isaac was in his early 30s

Based on Jeremiah’s writings regarding his prophetic calling spanning five kings, his birth is set around 655 BCE. His prophetic calling began in the thirteenth year of King Josiah’s reign—putting him around age 25–29, as mentioned earlier in this post.

Jeremiah 1:6-7

 וָאֹמַר, אֲהָהּ אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה, הִנֵּה לֹא-יָדַעְתִּי, דַּבֵּר:  כִּי-נַעַר

אָנֹכִי. 

And I said, “You are my LORD, ADONAI, here I am (or alas/behold), I  don’t know a thing because I am a young man.

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֵלַי, אַל-תֹּאמַר נַעַר אָנֹכִי:  כִּי עַל-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר

שְׁלָחֲךָ, תֵּלֵךְ, וְאֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר אֲצַוְּךָ, תְּדַבֵּר.

And the LORD said to me, you shall not say I am a young man: because wherever I send you, you will go and all that I command you, you will say.

In the natural, I get why Jeremiah tried to excuse himself. To a young man who had yet to spread his wings, the call must have seemed like a galaxy beyond his skill set.

Human viewpoint would say that a man trained in spiritual matters, matured, married, and long observant in his priestly duties is far better suited to attempt the task.

And yet.
Jeremiah may have studied Torah,
but he’d yet to swim in God’s deep, His secret place.
He may have a kohen lineage,
but he’d yet to personally know the power of God.
The journey wasn’t ever about Jeremiah’s strength, knowledge,
bloodline, or abilities.
It was—and always will be—about God and His strength,
plan, power, will.

FIRE IN THE SOUL

This isn’t a mission designed for a single man. God is working in Jeremiah’s soul for his own edification—while working through Jeremiah for Judah’s soul.

Making Jeremiah a fire-and-ice instrument in God’s hands.

A prophetic instrument that would see what God sees, feel what God feels, and experience in the physical what Judah is doing to God in the spiritual. Soul to soul.

Two realms begin to clash—with Jeremiah as both the scapegoat of Judah’s contempt for God’s ways and the conduit for God’s convictions, discipline, and hope.

Jeremiah is becoming God’s prophetic lightning rod.

He attracts the seething anger of Judah . . . while being consumed by God’s righteous, fiery words. Within those blasts of light, Judah’s soul condition is exposed.

There’s no place to hide. No place to run. There’s only surrender.

At times Jeremiah is sad, angry, appalled, and even feels abandoned by God. Other times he’s overcome with grace, mercy, and hope, empowered by His presence.

Don’t know about you, but that emotional flip-flop sounds way too familiar.

I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me . . . so the word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long. —Jeremiah 20:7b, 8b

But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. —Jeremiah 20:11a

It’s always a matter of who’s on first.
Your soul surrendered to God or
entangled with your earth-focused vessel.
Therein is the battle within the battle.

Jeremiah learns that. The wilderness journey and the battle humble him. Knock the wind out of him along the way. The timing. The disappointments. The rage. The angst. The depression.

Tensions roll over him in every form, on every front. He once walked among the privileged, a kohen. Then he becomes an outcast.

But he can’t, won’t stop. Why? Because he knows his calling. He has surrendered to his king.

Accepts and bears the yoke of the kingdom of heaven—עֹל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם.

RUNNING WITH HORSES

If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.—Jeremiah 20:9

Atmospheres are challenged when God’s words flow through Jeremiah. But the cost is high. Extremely, gloriously high.

If you’ve run with the footmen and they’ve exhausted you,
then how will you compete against horses?
You may feel secure in a land of peace,
but how will you do in the Yarden’s thick brush?
—Jeremiah 12:5

What is God conveying to Jeremiah? If you can’t keep up with the easier battle campaigns on the ground (footmen) when things aren’t that intense, how will you handle the thick of war?

A slightly closer look via the Hebrew fleshes it out . . .

כִּי אֶת-רַגְלִים רַצְתָּה וַיַּלְאוּךָ,

If you’re running/as in “rushing” (רַצְתָּה) with soldiers/footmen and they’re tiring you out (וַיַּלְאוּךָ)

וְאֵיךְ תְּתַחֲרֶה אֶת-הַסּוּסִים;

then how will you vie for/rival against (תְּתַחֲרֶה) horses [symbolic of army strength, an animal used for war times]

וּבְאֶרֶץ שָׁלוֹם אַתָּה בוֹטֵחַ, וְאֵיךְ

and in the land of peace you confidently trust in (or feel secure in), then how

תַּעֲשֶׂה בִּגְאוֹן הַיַּרְדֵּן.

will you do in the thicket (or raging/swelling or magnificence) of the Jordan?

In its glory days, the Jordan—which means “descender”—had umpteen curves with varying widths, from 75 feet to 200 feet. Many rapids and falls were along its course, which usually had a rapid, strong current.*

Sounds similar to a soul wilderness journey to me.
Being called down into His murmuring deep, descending into a place with rugged terrain and raging waters . . . an uncommon place where God alone is your road map.

Along his destined journey, Jeremiah learns how to focus on what God is doing—not what He’s removingduring that soul wilderness process.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? When God places any of us in a pressurized soul situation, we see what’s missing.

What’s been taken away.

Diminished.

Lost.

We mourn for what was—and wonder when, if ever, we will return to some state of our previous “normal.”

We long for release and hope for a new normal—the promise of something within that immerses us into His holiness and transforms us so we aren’t even a shadow of our former selves.

PUTTING IT INTO PERSPECTIVE

Life isn’t easy. And trials of any magnitude are disturbing. But the point is . . . are you first seeking God and believing His Word, following His leading, and getting covered in prayer from trusted believers in Him—or is your soul-dial set for auto-tilt?

You know, your spiritual compass hitting a “10” on the frustration richter scale.

Believe me, I’ve been there and can return in no time—if I’m not staying in His flow.

That’s why Jeremiah 12:5 is special to me. God used it often to encourage me during one of my extremely difficult wilderness journeys.

When I didn’t think I could take another step, another hit, another disappointment—newly widowed, family issues, uncertainties on so many levels—He’d given me a vision . . . allowing me to see and hear the stampeding hooves of mighty horses.

Would I run with them or fall to the side? If these spiritual battles—in times of relative national peace with challenges common to humanity—get me down, how would I ever finish the race against tougher enemies?

And what would I do in times of more difficult hardships or even persecution?

My soul knew the answer. It had to keep pushing forward in Him and with Him. But I had no strength on my own.

Throughout that five-year process (and counting), I had to take it step by step, soul breath by soul breath.

I’m in process, learning to rest on this truth in Jeremiah 20:11.
God is with me like a mighty warrior.

Read all the Soul Remodeling stories:

• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Sarah]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Joseph]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Moses]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes [Jeremiah]
• Soul Remodeling: Biblical Heroes[Saul Paulus]

I’ve had my God- designed wilderness journeys to deconstruct-reconstruct my soul. How about you? These posts can shed some light and encouragement: Soul Remodeling Series: The Wilderness Call, Part 1 and Soul Remodeling Series: The Wilderness Call, Part 2.

*Stats on Jordan from biblehub.com

PHOTO CREDITS:

Horse photo by Michael Anfange on Unsplash

Desert photo by Eddie and Carolina Stigson on Unsplash

Girl Looking Out photo by Edgar Hernandez on Unsplash

Article created July 28, 2015.