I was wounded and pouting.

A man has spoken sharply to me.  Unnecessarily. 

An hour after it happened, I was still numb.  But within a couple of hours, I was shaking it off.   

I thought of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:3).  How many caustic, toxic, hateful things were shouted at Him?  This person’s unkindness to me was nothing compared to what the Lord Jesus faced. 

Then Jeremiah 12:5 came to mind.:

            If you have raced with men on foot, and they have worn you out,
            how can you compete with horses?” 

Jeremiah felt overwhelmed.  We have felt overwhelmed;  ridiculed and rejected.

Yet Jeremiah aspired to serve God.  You and I aspire to serve God.  We want to participate in what the Living God is doing.  Therefore, we may have to brace ourselves for emotional collisions.  We may have to “run with the horses,” which in my case meant putting up with a caustic person,  refusing to be neutralized by him and position myself so as to get the Gospel to him.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can “run with the horses.”

My wife will normally give me a couple of hours of mope time, but after that it is time to start running again.