Forerunners

If you have run with the footmen and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? (Jeremiah 12:5). In Old Testament times the footmen were selected soldiers who ran ahead of the main army in order to scout out the land and prepare for its arrival. Many of the L-rd's servants, in the wisdom and timing of the L-rd, as forerunners, out of denomination, and have been "running ahead of the army" for some time now, even years. In a spiritual sense, these forerunners have been scouting the newly emerging landscape, adjusting their vision and their footsteps to the unfamiliar terrain and gathering necessary understanding of previously unexplored expressions of "being the church", as opposed to "going to church." For a great many of these forerunners the experience of being part of that "arrowhead" has been a costly one in terms of extreme loneliness, isolation and unjust accusations of rebellion from those they once walked with in the Body. However, the lessons they have learned and the brokenness gained from having endured and overcome in this place will prove to be of immeasurable benefit to the Bride in the days to come. These forerunners are the "nameless, faceless" ones spoken of by several prophetic voices. For the most part they have been hidden and crafted by the L-rd until His perfect timing and they will not look like or sound like the former leadership models the church has come to rely on. Some of these footmen-forerunners have been scouting ahead for a very long time, and their weariness is being compounded by discouragement and frustration as they wait for the movement of the main army. He says "the terrain is now changing. This new terrain is no place for footmen and requires the power of horsemen. How will you transition to the next stage of what I am doing if your strength has already run out? Let each one answer for himself and herself. Let each one seek Me for the answer, for you cannot do such a thing." The only way for the forerunners to keep pace was in the fullness of Y’Shua and the total emptiness of themselves, to "love our lives not unto death." This is not something that we can do by determining to do it. We cannot walk in it until the power of His Life in us has broken the power of "self-consciousness", "self-exaltation" and "self-preservation". The footmen to contend with the challenges of this new terrain and run with the horses and horsemen, and it is in the power of the Spirit and by no other means. "Many of the footmen have run individually, aware only of their own footsteps, their own path, and their own goals. The message is to look up, look around, stop what you are doing long enough to survey the new surroundings. For things are changing and the isolation many have known in this place is going to pass away. The L-rd wants His forerunners to be ready and alert to the new season. There is grace and strength for the discouraged and weary, and dying to the fear of man as never before. Stay close! There is no other Rest but the L-rd. He will enable you!