October 16, 2026
Running With Horses
How God Uses Small Tests to Prepare Servant Leaders for Greater Assignments
One of the most challenging truths a servant leader must learn is that God often prepares us for future assignments through present difficulties. Most leaders desire greater influence, larger opportunities, and wider ministry impact. We pray for God to open bigger doors and entrust us with greater responsibilities. Yet God is often more concerned with our preparation than our promotion. Before He enlarges our assignment, He develops our character. Before He increases our influence, He strengthens our endurance. Before He releases us into greater opportunities, He teaches us how to remain faithful in the smaller battles already before us.
This is the heart of God’s message to Jeremiah when He asked, “If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses? If you fall down in a land of peace, how will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5). Jeremiah was discouraged. He was struggling with injustice, opposition, and disappointment. Like many servant leaders, he was asking difficult questions about God’s ways. Yet God’s answer was not primarily comfort. Instead, God gave Jeremiah perspective. He challenged him to see his current struggles as preparation for something greater ahead.
The footmen represented the challenges Jeremiah was currently facing. They were real difficulties, but they were not the greatest difficulties he would encounter. God was essentially asking, “If these smaller battles are exhausting you, what will you do when larger battles arrive?” This question echoes across every generation of servant leaders. If a little criticism causes us to quit, how will we handle persecution? If a minor disappointment derails us, how will we endure major setbacks? If we cannot remain faithful in small assignments, how will we steward larger responsibilities?
The truth is that God often uses ordinary frustrations as leadership training. The difficult person in your ministry may be preparing you for future leadership challenges. The unexpected delay may be developing patience. The criticism may be producing humility. The disappointment may be teaching dependence upon God rather than dependence upon circumstances. What appears to be an interruption may actually be divine preparation.
Many servant leaders mistakenly view present difficulties as obstacles to ministry when God views them as part of ministry. We often pray, “Lord, remove this challenge.” God often replies, “No, I am using this challenge to prepare you.” James understood this principle when he wrote, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:2-3). Trials are not merely problems to survive. They are tools God uses to build endurance.
The horses in Jeremiah’s illustration represent greater assignments, greater challenges, and greater responsibilities. Horses move faster than footmen. They demand greater strength, greater skill, and greater endurance. In the same way, every increase in leadership brings increased pressure. Greater influence brings greater accountability. Larger ministry opportunities often bring greater spiritual warfare. Many leaders want the horses without first learning to run faithfully with the footmen.
This is why God frequently develops leaders in obscurity before placing them in visibility. Moses spent forty years in the wilderness before leading Israel. David spent years tending sheep and hiding in caves before becoming king. Joseph endured slavery and imprisonment before governing Egypt. Even Jesus spent thirty years in relative obscurity before beginning three years of public ministry. Heaven never rushes leadership development. God understands that a platform without preparation can destroy a leader.
The second part of God’s question is equally penetrating: “If you fall down in a land of peace, how will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?” The land of peace represents seasons when life is relatively stable. The thickets of the Jordan were dangerous places filled with obstacles and hidden threats. God was asking Jeremiah how he would respond when circumstances became far more difficult.
Every servant leader experiences both seasons. There are seasons of peace when ministry is fruitful, relationships are healthy, and opportunities are abundant. There are also seasons of Jordan thickets when opposition increases, resources seem limited, and challenges multiply. The faithfulness developed during peaceful seasons often determines how we respond during difficult seasons.
Jesus taught this same principle when He said, “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). Faithfulness is not something we suddenly acquire when larger opportunities arrive. Faithfulness is developed daily through obedience in ordinary situations. The servant leader who learns to trust God in small matters is preparing to trust Him in larger matters. The leader who develops consistency in private will possess stability in public.
Perhaps the greatest danger facing servant leaders is not failure but discouragement. Discouragement tempts us to focus on present difficulties while forgetting God’s larger purposes. Yet every challenge we face can become a training ground for future usefulness. Every setback can strengthen our endurance. Every trial can deepen our dependence upon Christ.
The ultimate example is Jesus Himself. He endured rejection, misunderstanding, betrayal, suffering, and the Cross. Yet He remained faithful because His eyes were fixed upon His Father’s purpose. Hebrews 12:2 reminds us to be “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.” The servant leader who keeps his eyes on Christ can endure present difficulties because he knows God is accomplishing something greater through them.
God’s question to Jeremiah remains a question for every servant leader today. If the footmen are tiring us out, perhaps God is preparing us to run with horses. If we are stumbling in peaceful places, perhaps God is teaching us how to stand in the thickets of the Jordan. The issue is not whether greater challenges are coming. They are. The issue is whether we will allow God to use today’s smaller tests to prepare us for tomorrow’s greater calling.
The leaders God uses most powerfully are rarely the most gifted. They are the ones who have learned endurance. They have discovered that every trial is preparation, every challenge is training, and every season of testing is an opportunity to grow stronger in dependence upon Christ. Those who learn to run faithfully with footmen today will one day find themselves running with horses for the glory of God.
